'Stop talking and start doing': HSAA wants to see action on addictions recovery support

Health Sciences Association of Alberta president Mike Parker speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about supports for those experiencing addiction.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Michael Higgins: Let's start on the Northern Alberta Youth Recovery Centre announcement. Once opened in 2026, it will more than double the number of treatment beds available. How big a boost is this where addictions treatment for youth is concerned?

Mike Parker: When you look at the requirements for addiction support of this province, absolutely we need more. We've been talking about needing more for a long time now, what this is doing is creating more.

A good start, but 2026 is a long way away. We're in a crisis today, we've been in a crisis for the last few years, and what we continue to do is wind down other pieces and dump all of this onto one cat in the bag and hope that's going to be the solution. And that's not it.

Our wrap-around services or supports for young people and for adults is failing across this province. This is an attempt, but it's a half-hearted attempt at trying to do something that they have really no understanding on what they're getting into here.

MH: The opposition has expressed concern over it being a shared site with the (insert rest of facility's name) Corrections Centre. What do you make of the choice of location?

MP: There are several places within this province that currently support youth in residential supports, they are nowhere near the prison. These young people are allowed to access and get out of their facility, and to go have a walk or do something or integrate in society.

This is going to stick vulnerable young people at risk outside of the city, outside of any access to any other resources. But we're right next to a prison, right next to the youth remand centre. We haven't thought this through there.

MH: There are questions yet to be answered on the operational side, specifically, Minister Williams saying he does not yet know who will run the Youth Recovery Centre, but that Recovery Alberta is the top contender. What's that signal to you?

MP: It signals, again, a mass privatization. Let's be clear, they've made this move and they've deconstructed Alberta Health Services. They have created all of this investment into Recovery Alberta being the premier and now we're going to say, ‘We might find somebody else instead.'

This is furthermore to privatization or monetizing treatment of Albertans, which is absolutely deplorable.

MH: Eleven new treatment facilities have been promised around the province, three are already in operation in Red Deer, Lethbridge, a third near Lac St. Anne northwest of Edmonton. What is your assessment of the rate of progress being made by the government in improving addictions treatment?

MP: As you can anticipate, my response will be something in the line of, we've been talking about this for years. This government's been in power for a long time, and the best we've got is three recovery centres in Alberta, with 11 that are promised.

How about we stop talking and start doing, and get these centres built? We need the help. We have seen an adjustment on our mortality rates for drug addiction in this province, although I don't fully believe the numbers that they're producing, but we'll see. And yet, we're not providing wrap around services and we are taking down any other support services that were available for people and expect them to go into the other eight or nine facilities that don't exist yet. This is ludicrous.

MH: Are there not those signs the Alberta model is having success? Government stats show a 42-per cent drop in fatal opioid overdoses this year compared to last.

MP: Yeah they're reacting quite well to the daily rates that they can they can produce but let me just ask you what it takes for the coroner's report to come back. It's usually four to six months, and now all of a sudden, we're announcing, ‘Hey, look at all these big number changes.'

We're not talking about the coroner's reports that come out every month saying that one that we didn't know about is actually a narcotic overdose. Yes that's another one, but we're not going to count those. So I don't believe their numbers, I think they're skewed, and I think they are misinforming Albertans.

MH: You mentioned private delivery. How do your members factor into the delivery care model? How do you see it needing to be improved or changed?

MP: When you look at the public sector health care system, we have the ability to pivot and flex for whatever the needs are for society. We saw it through COVID, we see it here today where our members are on the front lines all across this province as addictions and mental health workers that are there to support people.

What we're seeing now is the descaling, the privatization, of the work that's out there, and the monetizing of recovery treatment, which is just the start down this dangerous path that we're on where there's money to be made on treating people for addictions and mental health, which is shameful.

We have the public services, we have the professionals, and they are available to take care of Albertans, and the response from government is, we're going to sell it off to Bay Street and make a profit off of it. That's the idea for treatment. Unacceptable.

MH: Where does that leave your membership, in terms of the build out of Recovery Alberta as infrastructure?

MP: It would help if they would actually talk to us, we could understand it, but recently trying to have a conversation with our MLAs within this province, they seem to cancel meetings when we show up as addictions and recovery workers looking to talk and ask some questions. They don't want to talk.

They made a comment in the legislature only last week to say, if you want to talk, go talk to the bargaining table. So I guess that's what we're going to have to do.

MH: We're having this conversation midway through National Addictions Awareness Week. What's the bottom line of the message that you are sending to the provincial government?

MP: Our members are on the front lines across this province to take care of Albertans. The best way to ensure treatment is available for everyone is, it needs to be made available through a public health care system to access at any place in their recovery program.

Whether it's walking into a safe assumption site, or being available through an ER transition into a recovery centre. Any aspect, every aspect, must be done to ensure that we stop seeing death rates that are in the hundreds or in the thousands every year in this province, because one is too damn many in this province. We can do better.