Latest news with #RyanKirby
CBC
7 days ago
- Health
- CBC
N.L. promises MCP coverage for private rehab centre as demand soars
Newfoundland and Labrador's health minister has given her word that the province's medical care plan (MCP) will cover treatments at a new private rehabilitation centre. Vida Nova Recovery, located a 40-minute drive from St. John's, says it will nearly double the capacity of adult inpatient rehab services in the province, aiming to add 24 beds by the end of this year and 54 when the centre is fully functional. With the province's decision to grant MCP coverage, the centre's co-founder says the people filling those beds won't have to worry about how to pay for it. "There was only one way to do this," said Ryan Kirby. "It was never for a select few people. It was for everybody." Ryan Kirby is a co-founder of Vida Nova Recovery. His own struggle with addiction sparked the idea for the centre. (Ryan Cooke/CBC) Kirby said the group was in discussions with the provincial government for 18 months without a firm commitment, leading to Vida Nova Recovery penning a public letter last month urging members of the House of Assembly to voice their support for the project. The group says it heard from more than a dozen public officials, including Premier John Hogan. Then, last Tuesday, Health Minister Krista Lynn Howell wrote a letter to Kirby and his group promising to provide MCP coverage. Longer wait times, more referrals, flat-lined supply Kirby says it couldn't come at a better time. The province has seen a 50 per cent spike in demand for rehab beds in the last five years to a high of 663 referrals last year, according to statistics obtained by CBC News through access to information requests. Median wait times at the end of each fiscal year climbed from 36 days in 2020-2021 to 69 days in 2024-2025. In Labrador City, advocate Keith Fitzpatrick said people are being given even longer wait times. "We have people locally who just finished paperwork and they're being told 16 weeks," he told CBC News. "Sixteen weeks is a death sentence for a lot of people suffering addictions." WATCH | Demand for inpatient rehab is growing. A new facility hopes to help: Private rehab centre on Salmonier Line finally gets government to commit to MCP coverage The Newfoundland and Labrador government will cover people, via MCP, who go to the Vida Nova Recovery centre. The private, inpatient rehabilitation centre comes at a time when demand is rising and wait times have been getting longer. The CBC's Ryan Cooke has the story. Despite the growing demand for services, Fitzpatrick said the province didn't add capacity to the public system, which mostly consists of rehab centres in Harbour Grace and Corner Brook. A person will typically spend around five days in a detox facility, Fitzpatrick said, before being released to wait for a bed to open in a rehab centre. The longer the wait time, the more hopeless a person can feel. "People are dying or are going to die waiting for rehab," he said. Fitzpatrick says Vida Nova Recovery gaining MCP status could play a huge role in reducing those wait times and saving lives. Dr. Tony Parrell will serve as the medical director for Vida Nova Recovery. (Ryan Cooke/CBC) Dr. Tony Parrell, the medical director for Vida Nova Recovery, agrees. The centre aims to bring a chain of services — detox, rehab and transitional housing — together in one place. Without wait times in between each step in the process, Parrell said they'll be providing continuous care without the usual gaps of the public system that can leave a person susceptible to relapse. He points to one recent case he saw in an emergency room as an illustration of the strains on the current system. "I had a guy who came in saying he was suicidal because he just wanted help, and I didn't have anywhere I could tell him to go," Parrell said. "I just said here's the waitlist, and here's Vida Nova when we open." As for why the public should be funding services at a private clinic, Parrell said it makes economic sense. "I see people come in all the time in the emerge, and a single emerge visit we're talking thousands and thousands of dollars," he said. "And to put that money towards treatment to prevent that relapse and overdose and death risk and all the complications related to that is going to save all of us taxpayer money." Construction is underway to convert the former children's camp into a multi-faceted addiction recovery centre. (Ryan Cooke/CBC) Search for staff ongoing The centre is actively recruiting staff, with a goal of beginning operations as early as September. Kirby said some critics questioned how they'd find staff with such a crunch in the health-care system, but added it hasn't been a problem so far. Melissa Wells, the centre's managing director, was busy with job interviews when CBC News paid a visit last week. She's been meeting with nurses and social workers from all walks of life, including ex-pat Newfoundlanders looking to return home, and people who have dealt with addictions firsthand. "There's certainly no lack of talent with the people we've been meeting with," Wells said. Melissa Wells is Vida Nova Recovery's managing director. She said she's been impressed by the quality of applicants so far, as the centre prepares to open this fall. (Ryan Cooke/CBC) As for getting MCP coverage, she said it will go a long way in reducing the strain on the public system while saving lives in the process. "Our philosophy from the beginning is no one gets left behind," she said. "We want universal support for everyone. So the fact that we've been able to work with the government and come to an agreement to support our clients is astronomical." Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
CBC
20-05-2025
- Health
- CBC
N.L.'s newest addictions treatment centre could open as soon as July
Newfoundland and Labrador's newest addictions treatment centre could open as soon as July, with the leaders behind it saying they want to help as many people as possible while acknowledging that one-size can't fit all. Ryan Kirby, co-founder of Vida Nova Recovery located off Newfoundland's Salmonier Line in Holyrood, says they're talking with the provincial government's Department of Health and Community Services to work out a contract to allow them to accept anyone registered under the MCP program. He hopes that can be in place by when they plan to open in mid-July. "The hope is to be able to accept everyone," Kirby told CBC Radio's The Signal. "That is the goal, the ultimate goal, and that's what we want to happen." Vida Nova is the partnership of Kirby and Mark Lane. The pair put $1.1 million of their own money — including their homes as collateral — in February to see the creation of a centre that can initially open 54 care beds forward. Kirby has been open about his own struggles, going through rehab but not finding successes. He says it has put the centre top of mind for him. Kirby, along with medical director Dr. Anthony Parrell, say they want to help people through what they see as a small window of time for treatment. "In my training, I was taught that, unfortunately, addiction is characterized by relapse. So I want, with this team, to be able to catch people in those hard situations. To hopefully prevent those things down the line and meet them where they are," Parrell said. Kirby added Vida Nova might be able to cut down treatment wait times. "Having the detox wing in our facility, [it] gives us the ability to take someone right from the street into our building," he said. Melissa Wells, the centre's managing director, says she's been fielding calls and messages from people seeking services every day. She hopes the space, and the influx of additional resources, will help people avoiding care due to long wait lists to gain the ability to get what they need. She and Kirby believe their model to be scalable, and hope their work in Holyrood can show addiction care can succeed in rural Newfoundland and Labrador. "We're trying to track where our money is going so that we can show that something like this is very viable in another part of the province," Kirby said. "All the money we inject into Holyrood, we can show that we can do this in Grand Falls or we could do this in Corner Brook." Linda Bell, the former CEO of Bellwood Health Services Inc. in Toronto, has been working with the team. She told CBC News she believes in their model that prioritizes person-centric care that stays with them after initial steps. WATCH | See th e full episode of The Signal here: "You're not going to be looking at treating addiction and being successful if you're only treating them for a month. You need to have the support network, and that's what I like about Vida Nova. That they have thought about that right from the beginning," Bell said. "The key is to have a network of services that can help and come together open, barrier free. So we're [not] just referring to an outside counselor or referring to a detox, we are facilitating that process. We start wherever the person shows up."
