Latest news with #saferSupply
CBC
20 hours ago
- Health
- CBC
New operator takes over controversial Chinatown addiction clinic
Social Sharing Northwood Recovery was supposed to close on Monday, ending three months of fraught relations with neighbours in Chinatown. But the doors of the addiction treatment clinic on Somerset Street W. reopened Monday morning — under new management and a new name. Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster is outraged. "This is a huge betrayal of trust to the community," she said. "It's a huge betrayal of trust to my office and to the people who tried to work with the clinic to see if we can mitigate the problems nearby." Catherine Boucher, president of the Dalhousie Community Association, feels that same sense of betrayal. The councillor was lied to, the city was lied to, the community was lied to. - Catherine Boucher, Dalhousie Community Association "We were lied to," she said. "The councillor was lied to, the city was lied to, the community was lied to." Northwood Recovery offered safer supply, a controversial addiction treatment approach that prescribes opioids to help drug users get off street drugs like fentanyl. Troster supports safer supply, but not the way it was happening at Northwood — with a remote doctor and, in her view, inadequate supports. Neighbours blamed the clinic for an upsurge in open drug use and social disorder in the area, saying patients diverted their prescription drugs to the black market and attracted dealers to the community. Last month, management told Troster that Northwood was leaving Ottawa, and the physician who owned the clinic confirmed to her he was closing his practice in the city. But now the site is operating as a satellite office of New Dawn Medical, which has more than 20 addictions clinics across the province. New Dawn's medical director, Dr. David D'Souza, said it felt a duty to ensure Northwood's patients weren't left without care. "Our focus is on ensuring that patients get great access to care, the best possible care, and when we heard that these patients might be potentially orphaned, we said no, we have the obligation to step in," he said. D'Souza said it's too early to say whether the Somerset Street W. location will operate primarily as a safer supply clinic. "For us, it's making sure that the right patients are on this program," he said. "If we believe this patient is inappropriately managed with safer supply, we will transition them and take them off the program completely, entirely." 'High standards' promised Troster said she needs to hear more about how New Dawn will run the clinic, and said the status quo is unacceptable. "If they intend to stay and work under new management, I need to know what they're willing to do to ensure that the drug dealing, the crime, the public drug use, and just the general level of chaos in the neighbourhood is actually dealt with," she said. "Because we received no help from Northwood in that regard." Boucher isn't optimistic that new management will solve the problems she linked to the clinic. "I'm not getting a sense that it will be much different," she said. "I can be hopeful, but why did they not contact us to let us know they were coming in?" D'Souza said the clinic will offer a high standard of comprehensive care with addiction specialists, cardiologists, internal medicine specialists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists. He said all of New Dawn's sites have the capacity for in-person and remote care, though he predicted that a higher-needs area like Ottawa would probably merit more in-person visits from physicians. "For this area, we will have our doctors coming in person. They might not be there every day, but they're going to be there," he said. "We have to look at the patient needs and the population. Our plan is always to be there in person, even if it's once a week, once every two weeks. We will have to decide based on the needs and our physicians." D'Souza said New Dawn takes drug diversion very seriously and will take measure to combat it. "Our program, I would say it's probably one of the strictest programs in the province," he said. "We have extremely good protocols to make sure we minimize any risk of diversion." He offered to meet with Troster and promised to balance the safety of the community with the needs of his patients. "We care about the patients and we care about the community," D'Souza said. "We have very high standards for our program, especially for our safer supply program."
CTV News
5 days ago
- Health
- CTV News
Safer supply clinic set to close in Ottawa's Chinatown neighbourhood
An Ottawa councillor says the closure of a controversial safer supply clinic in Chinatown will 'be a relief' to residents in the neighbourhood. Northwood Recovery billed itself as a safer supply site that provides legal drugs, like methadone, to help with addiction. The Northwood Recovery clinic initially opened in Hintonburg, before moving to its location on Somerset Street West in March. In her weekly newsletter to constituents, Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster said Northwood Recovery has indicated the clinic plans to close on June 9. 'The management of the clinic confirmed this with my office in writing. I know this will be a relief to many of you who live in Chinatown and West Centretown,' Troster wrote. 'This comes after tremendous community advocacy, from both residents and experts in the sector.' Troster says her office will continue to advocate for sustainable solutions to the overdose crisis, including harm reduction, treatment and supportive housing. 'The forced closure of the supervised consumption site at Somerset West Community Health Centre and the opening of the Northwood Clinic created a perfect storm, resulting in a significant and alarming uptick in public drug use and dealing,' Troster said. 'While I am deeply supportive of harm reduction services, it quickly became clear that the Northwood Clinic was not operating in a way that was accountable to the community or service users.' Northwood Recovery's website says the clinic offers a methadone program for people struggling with addition to opioids. 'It's an effective and legal substitute for heroin or other narcotics,' Northwood Recovery says. 'Methadone has been used in treatment programs since the 1960s. It helps to stabilize the lives of people who are dependent on opiates and reduce the harm related to drug use.' According to the website, there are Northwood Recovery and Recovery North locations in Sudbury, Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, North York, Little Current, and Haileybury.
CBC
5 days ago
- Health
- CBC
Controversial safer supply clinic closing its doors next week
A divisive Ottawa safer supply clinic that prescribed opioids to fentanyl users but drew criticism while operating in two locations in less than a year will close its doors next week. Northwood Recovery prescribed Dilaudid and other medication to people struggling with drug addiction. It opened first in Hintonburg last September before moving to a new location in Chinatown in March. While patients who spoke to CBC generally supported the clinic, the company was criticized by others for its reliance on virtual care, for not offering a supervised injection site or wraparound services such as supportive housing, and for what neighbours said was an upsurge in open drug use. On May 30, Dr. Suman Koka, the doctor running Northwood Recovery and a network of sister clinics across Ontario, emailed Somerset Coun. Ariel Troster to confirm Northwood is closing its clinical practice in Ottawa on June 9. Troster shared the email with CBC. "We have informed the pharmacies," Koka wrote in the email. "We are taking direction from the patients as to which physician they wish their care to be transferred." Koka did not respond by deadline to a request for comment. Troster told CBC that while she supports harm reduction and more resources are definitely needed, she had concerns about how Northwood Recovery was operating out of its clinic on Somerset Street W., including its lack of supportive housing. The concern with Northwood Recovery was that people were getting prescriptions for Dilaudid when they were addicted to fentanyl because that's the strongest drug that doctors can prescribe according to the formulary in Ontario, Troster said. "Because it takes six or eight doses a day in order to stave off addiction to fentanyl, it means it was inevitable that people had to carry large quantities of drugs with them, which led to diversion or people reselling the drugs and a lot of the chaos that goes along with that," Troster continued. "People were being robbed of their drugs and it was a really unsustainable solution." Northwood Recovery's departure will likely bring relief to the community, "but it's definitely not a solution," Troster added.
CBC
15-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
MLA says RCMP questioned her about leaked safer supply government documents
A B.C. Conservative MLA says she was questioned by the RCMP for publicly releasing leaked government documents about the safer supply drug program. As Katie DeRosa reports, the premier and the solicitor general say they were unaware police had launched an investigation.
