The new Brightshores Wellness and Recovery Centre in Owen Sound is set to start taking patients June 18th.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Friday to mark the completion of the redevelopment of the former Bayview School on 6th Street East into a mental health and addictions treatment centre that serves people at numerous stages of recovery.
The centre, which is run by the Brightshores Health System hospital corporation is supported by provincial funding. It will have 45 inpatient beds as well as outpatient services.
Ontario Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo, and Brightshores Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services Naomi Vodden have been working together and with their staff for the past few years to develop the new model of care. It aims to provide holistic care from the first step of withdrawal treatment to long-term treatment and skill building.
The ribbon cutting was attended by Premier Doug Ford, Health Minister Sylvia Jones, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MPP Rick Byers, local mayors from both Grey and Bruce counties, County representatives, community organizations, Brightshores staff and Associate Minister Tibollo.
Brightshores Director of Mental Health and Addiction Services Naomi Vodden says “The most unique part is we have all stages of change. So if some people are ready for treatment they might come into withdrawal management and then they have to wait for a treatment program— and here, our treatment program is right here.”
Vodden adds, ‘What’s unique, is people who are not ready for treatment, which is a large amount of people, they are still welcome here.”
She adds, “The goal is to connect with people where they’re at. If they just want to come in and learn how to cook a meal, we’re okay with that. And the goal is then they meet with staff who make them feel safe, who make them feel warm and welcome and then they might go into our addiction program.”
Vodden says before this centre opens on June 18th, if you are in crisis, you would need to go to the hospital emergency department. She says especially in the smaller towns in Grey Bruce, the emergency room could be the only place that’s open 24/7 if you need help or shelter. She says this will also be a pathway for people in smaller communities like Hanover to be transferred from their emergency departments for this more specialized care.
Vodden says emergency rooms are dealing with strokes, heart attacks and traumas that need immediate attention and often people in a mental health or addiction crisis have to wait so long, some just leave.
“By having a place to come and feel welcome, we hope that people will come here rather than the emergency room,” says Vodden.
She notes the withdrawal management centre will be open 24/7.
Vodden adds, they’ve been working with Grey and Bruce Counties and the Canadian Mental Health Association about how to coordinate people’s needs with housing and longer stays at the centre.
Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo has been pushing for this new model of care, and he isn’t just minister by coincidence. He has a doctorate in the field, though he notes he hasn’t defended his PhD yet, but he will in a couple of weeks. “My topic of interest is residential therapeutic communities to deal with individuals’ substance use disorders and concurrent disorders, so that’s my speciality,” says Tibollo in an interview with Bayshore Broadcasting News.
Tibollo says, “The model actually started in the United States, and if you really want to be fair to the Indigenous communities, they started it 500 years ago and we adopted it to create a residential therapeutic community in the United States, but then they fell apart and Europe picked up on it, and now Europe is filled with them. Italy, France, Portugal, I studied those models, as well as the work that I do.”
Tibollo says he used to run a similar model of care centre in Ontario but it wasn’t funded by the government. “As a result of that, there weren’t enough beds to help people,” says Tibollo.
He explains, “Someone I knew lost a son to an overdose and that’s when I decided to get into politics. This wasn’t my first choice as a job. I was a practicing lawyer and volunteering in a place like this and realized if the government doesn’t wake up and do something, a lot more people are going to die.”
“So I dedicated my political career to making sure that this gets built and gets done,” says Tibollo.
While Tibollo hopes the model frees up police officers who spend time in ERs with people in crisis, Police Chief Craig Ambrose thinks it may be a gradual change with longer term results in the community, “I think longer-term, you’ll see that… right now if somebody gets into a crisis and we get involved, we deal with them during the crisis and then the ambulance transports them to the ER— there’s not much option for breaking that cycle. I think longer term, this is the opportunity to break that cycle and exit that cycle of addiction…and hope for recovery.”
Mayor Ian Boddy says, “I think this is very important and a huge asset to Owen Sound and the entire Grey Bruce Region. We’ve had some overdoses recently and it’s just an example of how badly it’s needed and to be able to have people that can come in and be treated from the start and long-term get the full treatment that they need is going to help the community, help get people off the streets and back on their feet.”
Back in 2022, the provincial government announced $6 million for the beds in the centre. But Tibollo notes the renovation of the site and other capital work wouldn’t have been possible without the community putting a significant amount of money into it.
Premier Doug Ford noted during the ribbon cutting the funding is part of a $90 million addiction recovery fund and between the province and the federal government it’s $3.8 billion for mental health and addiction. Ford added, “There’s not a person out there that doesn’t know someone that doesn’t have a friend, or a relative or a colleague at work that has faced challenges, and they’re challenges, and we can get through the challenges if we give them the proper support they need. It’s when it gets worse is when you don’t have the support there. We’re going to keep pouring money into the system because as we say you can’t have a healthy economy without a healthy population.”
Associate Minister Tibollo says there will be more centres like this one opening soon in Ontario. He says Sudbury, and North Bay will soon open centres. They’re also working on centres in Woodstock, Belleville, Brockville and Thunder Bay.
“This is the first of its kind in the province, but it’s not the last,” says Tibollo.
Brightshores Health System is thrilled to announce the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art Wellness and Recovery Centre – Mental Health & Addictions. The ribbon-cutting ceremony took place today.
Learn more now, https://t.co/fYPKvfvaXt pic.twitter.com/QgidQ7ZmtI— Brightshores Health System (@BrightshoresHS) June 7, 2024