How a little money will go a long way for a Carbonear addictions centre

It's a tiny piece of the $8.4-billion provincial budget unveiled Tuesday, but co-founder Jeff Bourne says the $120,000 allocated for the U-Turn Drop-In Centre will be a big help.

"We've been pretty much running on the minimum for the last number of years, so this is a big help for us to expand our services," Jeff Bourne told the St. John's Morning Show on Wednesday.

"I had the proposal put in and I kinda knew a little bit that maybe we might be getting the funding, but it wasn't 100 per cent written in stone, so fingers crossed. It did come in."

Will work with board on allocating money

Bourne said he'll be meeting with U-Turn's board of directors on how best to use the money. U-Turn is a non-profit organization that helps people recover from addictions.

"We're in the process now of moving to a new location, and I guess that'll kinda help us a little bit along the way there, and we'll just wait and see when the board sits down and we start crunching some numbers and see what the best way [is] to use these funds."

U-Turn's current location in Carbonear is over capacity, he said, and the new location will allow for more support services.

"Our reading space now is going to be pretty much the same size as the whole building that we're leasing right now," he said. "But also, the technology that we're going to upgrade, we'll be able to have workshops and presentations and education."

In broader terms, though, one Memorial University economics professor says Tuesday's budget doesn't do enough to improve health-care delivery in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Lynn Gambin said there was "nothing surprising" in the budget.

Review should be done, says prof

"That's kind of a little bit disappointing. We recently had a health forum looking at health-care costs and health outcomes, and I think there is a consensus, or seems to be, that there is a need for some big changes in public services. Right now, the new budget's not holding that end. It's time to see some more changes, I think."

Gambin pointed to an announced review of provincial post-secondary education and said health care should get the same examination.

"Our education and our health outcomes don't suggest that we have a really highly functioning and high-quality system," she said.

"That's not a reflection on the people that are working on delivering those services, but I think it's time to really think about what the end goal is for us as a society. What should health look like? What are the measures of health that we're interested in?"