Alberta provides some data on patients using drug addiction treatment centres

The Alberta government has released some preliminary data on patients attending its drug addiction treatment centres but says it is still not tracking long-term outcomes, which are key to determining if their cornerstone approach to address towering overdose deaths is actually working.

The government’s plan to create long-term residential treatment facilities, called recovery communities, was first introduced in July 2020, under former United Conservative Party premier Jason Kenney. Among the 11 sites the province plans to establish, only two locations are so far fully operational: the Red Deer location that opened last May with 75 beds and the Lethbridge community that opened last September with 50 beds. Combined, they can support 500 clients annually.

These communities, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and operate, are a key element of the UCP’s drug policy, which favours recovery-oriented services over harm reduction supports. Critics of the province’s recovery-focused path have pointed to a lack of data as the main issue in assessing its effectiveness.

The annual report for the Mental Health and Addictions ministry, released last Thursday, found that the province roughly spent $43-million in combined capital funding, in addition to $5.3-million in Red Deer and $3.1-million in Lethbridge annually for operational costs paid to private companies.

The Red Deer site supported 145 clients, with 74 others in Lethbridge, by the end of the fiscal year on March 31.

Hunter Baril, press secretary to Addictions Minister Dan Williams, said in a statement that the average length of stay in Red Deer is 148 days. Clients are allowed, however, to stay up to a year, where they receive supports, including group and individual therapy, life skills support and opioid agonist treatment, which involves medications to treat opioid use disorder.

“This pursuit is very personal and based on the individual’s goals and timeline,” he said. “This comprehensive program helps every Albertan leave the program drug free, and ready to transition into training, employment or other day programs, with strong connections to the community.”

Mr. Baril declined to answer specific questions from The Globe and Mail on how the facilities define recovery and measure completion of the program or whether any patients have returned to drug use after leaving the facility.

He noted that there are four phases to the recovery community treatment program: stabilization and assessment; additional assessment, treatment planning and structured group therapy; community living, including work therapy; and preparing participants for transition back to the community.

“Regarding long-term outcomes, the measurement of these outcomes is something the Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence will be undertaking once it is fully established later this year,” he said. When announced in April, the government said the Crown corporation would become operational this summer with an initial annual budget of $5-million.

Elaine Hyshka, assistant professor at the University of Alberta’s School of Public Health, is concerned about the lack of transparency with the recovery community programming.

“How often are people seeing a primary care provider? What other kinds of regulated health professionals are staffing these facilities? What are the specific interventions provided?” she said are some of the unanswered questions.

“When I see an average length of stay of five months, my question is, is it because people are doing so well that they just leave or is it because there’s a relatively high rate of premature discharge?”

Dr. Hyshka said public data should be readily available, regarding for example short and long-term outcomes of patients, any adverse events that occur within facilities and a breakdown of what substances clients are seeking help for. She noted that other health care settings, such as supervised consumption sites, already track this type of information.

This data could then be posted to Alberta’s existing substance use surveillance dashboard, which tracks drug poisoning deaths, drug-related emergency department visits and more, Dr. Hyshka said, helping people understand the extent of the crisis and if existing services are making a difference.

Currently, more than four Albertans are dying daily, on average, from unintentional drug overdoses.

With files from Carrie Tait