Medical and Regular Detox Locations/Development in Canada

There are no less than 23 medical detox locations in Canada, with a concentration in the eastern provinces. The grand majority of these deal with alcoholism and almost all are general treatment centers for all types of substance abuse. The spread of medical detox as a measure is slow at best.

Only one of the over 30 rehab centers specializes in medical detox in Canada.  It seems like a typical enough facility: providing luxurious services in a natural, wholesome environment.

Other outfits that are seeking to implement medical detoxification range from very small (10-13 bed operations) to very large, public organizations with facilities ranging upwards of 400 bed capacity. The primary limitation is the inability to cost effectively and recruit and employ qualified individuals in the centers themselves.

The remedies to such a problem are broader and deal with the inherent limitations of the health system. As demand expands for more effective treatments, the supply of doctors is remaining about the same, given the licensing and regulatory system. This lack of doctors in tandem with increasing demand is driving the cost of rehabilitation greatly.

This limits those people who would prefer private, satisfying rehabilitation institutions, instead forcing them into public organizations which administer an undersupplied operation. Under-supplying messes up greatly the ability of doctors to functionally taper individuals off of their addictions. The amount of methadone, for instance, is not enough to satisfy addicts, thus they are forced back onto the street for a satisfying hit. As they go back to the street, they get wrapped back into addict communities, depressing their economic ability to rise to meet the costs inherent to a better rehab program. This inability to purchase among users reduces the number of available options and the cycle of self destruction continues, reducing the number of available medical detox facilities to only Cedars.

Within the current Canadian health system, it is impossible to functionally reform this cycle without changing our entire approach to the system. One option is to follow to British path in decentralizing the health system to centralized health bureaucracies are no longer the focus of advocacy efforts. Beyond that, more independent ways of doing things provide better methods for experimentation and the ability to allow resources to flow along more open policies.

More decentralization will lead to finding better ways to address the addiction problem with better funding sources for medical detox facilities and other rehab programs. I am not an expert and, therefore, cannot possibly approach the problem in a functional manner. However, many of the suggestions made in the past few years to DTES have been rejected based on macro political reasoning and advocacy, but would be instituted if smaller jurisdictions were able to make their own decisions.

^{Reference: www.sober.com/Directory/...Detox.../Canada/Page1.html}