Whispering Pines addictions treatment centre shuts down
Sarah Petz | CBC News | Posted: June 30, 2019 10:00 AM | Last Updated: June 30, 2019
Staff were notified Wednesday that owners would be shuttering small facility
A small addictions treatment facility located north of Winnipeg abruptly shut down this week.
Staff at Whispering Pines say they were notified Wednesday that the facility, owned by Aurora Recovery Centre, would be closing down immediately and they would need to pack their things and leave.
The facility is private residential treatment centre for addictions and mental health issues located in Teulon, Man.
It had 12 staff, including two addictions counsellors, a clinical psychologist, art program facilitator, and night staff. The centre could take on about eight to nine clients at a time.
Kathleen Helgason, one of the centre's addictions counsellors, said the news came as a shock to staff, who got no prior notice.
Whispering Pines was bought by Aurora about a year ago after its longtime owner died. Helgason said staff were expecting some changes as a result but not to be closed down so quickly and without warning. She said staff were told the facility was no longer profitable.
"You know, I think that was part of the confusion too is why why are we handling a situation in this way? Because it felt, I felt like it could've been handled differently," she said.
"And also just the confusion around, why the decision now? Because there had been no discussion about profits or operating in a more effective way or you know, concern about our numbers. There had been no discussion of that."
Whispering Pines only had one client staying there at the time. She was offered a place at Aurora's facility in Gimli, but decided to go home instead.
Helgason said it was common to only have one client staying at the Teulon centre at a time but that the number of people staying there could change weekly.
Its small setting made it an intimate, family-like experience for people trying to kick their addictions, she said.
"A lot of our clients that were there enjoyed treatment for that reason, because they had a lot of one-on-one time with counsellors. So they would get a lot of intensive treatment while they were there because there was a very small number of people," he said.
Centre 'saved my life,' recent client says
Brent Campbell was a client at Whispering Pines in December. He praised the treatment he received and said it was "crazy" to hear it's closed given the level of need for programming in the province.
"It was incredible," the recovering crystal methamphetamine user said. "Without a doubt it saved my life."
Campbell lauded the centre's method of providing a lot of one-on-one counselling to clients, saying six days a week he got one hour of personal time with a counsellor. "That was a huge difference," said Campbell.
Other treatment centres he's been to focused more on group counselling, Campbell said.
He left his time there "more centred and more at peace" than he's ever been, Campbell said.
Facility not profitable, too small: Aurora founder
However, Paul Melnuk, founder and chairman of the Aurora Recovery Centre, said Whispering Pines was running a deficit, and was too small of a facility to offer the quality of programming Aurora strives for.
"I just could not see trying to promote and build on something that I don't think had the depth, breadth, and quality of care that we want to provide," he said.
Officials at Aurora chose not to notify Whispering Pines staff until last week because they didn't want rumours of the centre's impending closure to potentially impact its clients, he said.
"You know if we if we started talking to people, that would affect their interactions with members, and we didn't think that was a fair or appropriate," he said.
Whispering Pines' full-time and part-time staff were given severance, while contract employees were let go without, he said.