Cambridge councillors irked by location of new Galt addiction clinic

A new rapid access addiction clinic will open in Cambridge this Friday, and local councillors aren't happy they weren't briefed on the location.

The clinic will go at 13 Water St. N., and will be open each Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The nurse practitioner-led clinic will also include an addiction counsellor and a peer support worker.

But during Tuesday night's council meeting, some councillors expressed some concern about the location and the fact they weren't made aware of the clinic was set to open at the Water Street location rather than at Cambridge Memorial Hospital as expected.

"We found out recently you're opening on Friday so there was no public announcement of this. We found out accidentally that this was even opening," Coun. Jan Liggett said.

Liggett asked if this would be a temporary location or if the plan was to keep it there permanently. She initially asked if they would be "stuck" with the clinic in Galt and then reconsidered her word choice.

"Not stuck — because it's a bad word because it's a great, great service to the community. But when I look at how many services we have down here this just adds one more to our downtown core," she said.

She said she wants people to get help, "But I'm hoping that this is really short term, temporary, and it is going to go to the hospital."

Kristin Kerr, clinical lead for primary and acute care at Stonehenge Therapeutic Community, told council they are considering the Water Street location as a permanent location.

"The location of the nurse-practitioner clinic was an intentional choice in order to make sure that there was easy access to these services," she said. "It was important to launch the clinic as soon as possible so that residents were able to access this support."

They have funding to run the clinic two days a week, and they would like to find a location where they could do both clinics at the same place. Kerr said they're still looking at options.

"There are some definite benefits to that clinic, to this location, as well as to the hospital," she said.

Mayor points to 'tension' over addiction

Mayor Doug Craig also expressed frustration at not being informed about the clinic's location.

"I'm hearing about it just the other day," he told Kerr.

"We want to know where these things are going, and we want to know when they're happening. I think it's a courtesy that we deserve," he said.

"I understand the benefits. I understand the intent of good will. I understand all of that. But I think when you have a community that has a tension in it because of all the activities in terms of the homeless and in terms of addiction and everything else, this doesn't help by the way it's being rolled out."

Coun. Mike Mann asked how quickly people who went to the clinic could access addiction services. He asked if someone with addictions came in and said they wanted to get off drugs right then, "are you going to send [a drug user] away?"

Kerr said the clinic will be staffed by a nurse practitioner, addictions counsellor and a peer support worker who has lived addiction experiences.

Those three people will provide in-the-moment support, and the addictions counsellor would offer options to the person who came in and help them navigate the system to decide what services they want to access.

But, Kerr said, there is a wait list for some services.

"We don't have any secret backdoor to access additional addiction treatment services, so there is a process they will need to go through, but what they can get right then is counselling and support in the moment and information about where they can access services," she said.

Third clinic in the area

The Cambridge clinic will be the third rapid access addiction clinic funded by the Waterloo Wellington Local Health Integration Network (LHIN).

The Guelph clinic, which runs Mondays at the Sanguen Health Centre at 176 Wyndham St. N., in the downtown core, has been running for one year.

Kerr said in the first six months, there were 124 unique visitor,s and those who used the services ranged in age from 15 to 86, which "really demonstrates the need for addiction treatment and addiction medical support crosses all of those age ranges." 

She noted about half of the people who came to the clinic listed alcohol as their addiction, followed by opioids and then stimulants.

Kerr also said in those first six months, 40 per cent of people at the Guelph clinic were from outside the city with many coming from Waterloo region.

The Kitchener clinic opened at the Grand River Hospital Withdrawal Management Centre at 52 Glasgow St. in March. It also runs Mondays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.