Research points to the need for a Northern Centre of Excellence for Addiciton and Mental Health in Thunder Bay

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY—The need for a Northern Centre of Excellence for Addiction and Mental Health was among the findings of a recently released report from the Thunder Bay Drug Strategy. The findings of the collaborative research and regional engagement process, conducted in partnership with the Centre for Rural and Northern Health Research (CRaNHR), were released on Oct. 29 at Thunder Bay City Hall, with 95 per cent in favour of a Northern Centre of Excellence.

“We did regional engagements around peoples’ desires and priorities for a Centre of Excellence in Mental Health and Addiction,” says Christopher Mushquash, director of CRaNHR, Canada research chair in Indigenous mental health and addiction, associate professor at Lakehead University, clinical psychologist at Dilico Anishinabek Family Care and a Pays Plat citizen. “We heard loud and clear from the region that there was certainly a strong interest and a strong need, so now our next steps are in determining how to go about seeing if we can determine the resources to make that happen.”

Mushquash says prescription drug abuse is an area of priority in northwestern Ontario.

“It is something that we see is affecting a lot of people and it is certainly something we heard loud and clear in our engagements,” Mushquash says. “Should a Centre of Excellence be developed, it is one of those places that could be a repository for information, for assistance, for capacity building, for training and for evaluation of research to help communities with those solutions at home.”

Cynthia Olsen, coordinator of Thunder Bay Drug Strategy, says northwestern Ontario presents unique geographic and cultural needs that make the prevention and treatment of substance use, as well as support for mental health, challenging.

“We see a disproportionately high rate of substance use in the region and a need for a localized approach to build capacity around the specific needs of the north,” Olsen says.

More than 200 people, including frontline workers, municipal and First Nation policy makers and people living with addiction and mental health challenges, participated in the engagement process.

“It emphasized that there’s needs all across the north, that there’s needs both for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous population,” says Mary Ellen Hill, senior researcher with CRaNHR. “They need things to provide better care locally, so they have to have the tools and resources to do that.”

Hill says the participants had many ideas about what a Centre of Excellence would look like.

“Some people thought we could do it over the Internet but most people wanted something face-to-face,” Hill says. “They wanted it to be accessible so people could drop in, talk to people in different communities and get some hands-on assistance with whatever they needed.”

Shuniah Mayor Wendy Landry, a Red Rock Indian Band citizen and president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, says the research confirmed the need for a centre to address addiction and mental health issues in the area.

“It’s moving quicker than some of us can address it,” Landry says. “It’s not just policing, it’s not just our programs, it’s a combination of everything and a lack of housing and just the gaps in services and where it cuts off from one service to the next. You have a backlog of people that can’t get into a detox centre, you have people that can’t get into treatment, you have a backlog of people that can’t get into housing, you have a backlog of people into shelter houses.”

Information on the results of the report are available online.