St. Joseph's Care Group prepares for site swap to expand capacity for Thunder Bay's detox program

The only withdrawal management program in Thunder Bay, Ont., is being moved into a larger space to expand its capacity.

St. Joseph's Care Group runs a number of addiction and mental health services in the northwestern Ontario city, including live-in recovery treatment, counselling, outpatient services and a supported transitional living program.

At the Balmoral Centre on Sibley Drive, it manages the city's 25 detox beds. At the Crossroads Centre on Oliver Road, which integrated with St. Joseph's Care Group in April, it offers 20 pre and post-treatment beds with on-site support. The organization is also a partner with the community's Rapid Access Addiction Medicine Clinics.

In order to make more room for the withdrawal management program, the Balmoral Centre and Crossroads Centre are swapping sites.

Both programs will operate at the Oliver Road building later this fall, while renovations take place at the Sibley Drive location. By summer 2025, the Crossroads Centre is hoped to permanently move from Oliver Road to Sibley Drive.

"Crossroads Centre will be renovated to meet the needs and provide the services to individuals that will be more accessible, safe and welcoming," said Nicole Spivak, director of addiction services with St. Joseph's Care Group.

"It will also allow space, which we don't have currently, to involve other programs."

A town hall meeting is being held on Thursday at the Oliver Road Community Centre from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. ET, where community members will have the chance to speak with staff and members of Superior North EMS and the Thunder Bay Police Service about the changes.

No updates on detox facility, safe sobering centre

In 2021, St. Joseph's Care Group submitted a proposal for a 40-bed detox facility, which would include integrated mental health and addiction support.

CBC News requested an update from the province this summer on the status of that application. Hannah Jensen, deputy director of communications for Health Minister Sylvia Jones, confirmed that a proposal for a detox bed facility was received by Ontario Health, a provincial Crown agency. CBC News has not received any updates on the proposal's status.

At the end of 2022, the jury that oversaw the joint inquest into the deaths of Don Mamakwa and Roland McKay in Thunder Bay recommended a safe sobering centre be created in the city. St. Joseph's Care Group was involved in the task force looking into the creation of such a space.

"We received positive signals, but it's still going through the processes with our funder — so in the meantime, we're just going to focus on the renovations and moving those spaces over," Spivak said.

The organization's priority is to maintain a continuum of care to meet people's needs, she said.

"We really want to be able to respond as timely as possible, so although one program might have a wait-list or requirements for application … it's looking at other options that might be available in programs to reduce that wait," Spivak said.

"Any individual that comes, regardless of whether or not that service or a bed is available right away, we will work with that person to connect them, so they're not without services."

'I've been where you've been'

The organization's project team has been engaging with people who have lived experience of addiction to help make sure there is a smooth transition of services once the site swap takes place, Spivak said.

Karen Millington has been in recovery from addiction for about 12 years. She's now a certified peer support worker with St. Joseph's Care Group's peer support services, and a client and family partner with the organization.

"I was an IV drug user at one time, so I've experienced all the loss: loss of a marriage, loss of a career, loss of my child, loss of all those things to my addiction," Millington said.

She accessed treatment, aftercare, counselling and trauma therapy with support from St. Joseph's. Now, she uses her lived experience to build trust with clients and help them decide what kind of services they want.

"When we're connecting with somebody and I say, 'I know how you feel, I've been where you've been,' that really has an impact," Millington said.

While she wants to see more support in the community, including more detox beds and shorter wait times for treatment, Millington said people must also recognize the strength it takes to reach out for help.

"I know a lot of people are like, 'why don't you just get sober? Why don't you just get clean?' It's not that simple for somebody who's in active addiction or in recovery, either," she said.

"We have a battle going on in our brain that people don't understand."

Reducing stigma in community, medical field

Dr. Greg Carfagnini is the medical director of addictions services at St. Joseph's Care Group. He describes addiction care as the melding of medicine and social work, and said it's important to have a wide range of care options available.

"We combine the pharmacology and the counselling to really support patients and clients there," Carfagnini said. "Whatever their goals are, whether that's recovery or just a harm reduction approach, we like to meet the patients and clients where they're at."

While he also wants to see more services in Thunder Bay, particularly related to harm reduction, he said community partners are doing their best to work together with the resources they have.

Meanwhile, there's a lot of training happening at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine University in addiction medicine, which he hopes can help reduce stigma around substance use within the medical profession.

"There's been great improvement in our community and across the province and the country as far as normalizing substance use, and treating it as a medical condition or social problem versus a character flaw," he said.

As for Millington, she said she also feels hopeful about efforts to make addiction services more accessible and less stigmatized.

"The more things that are out there, the more programs that are available, the more choices that we have," she said.