The provincial health ministry is quietly introducing a detox and addictions service for the Northwest.
It is located in the newly-replaced Seven Sisters mental health residential facility on the grounds of Ksyen Regional Hospital in Terrace.
The new Seven Sisters has 25 bedrooms, five more than the Seven Sisters building it replaced, and it is those five rooms in the new facility that are now being converted into what the health ministry calls "adult withdrawal management services."
Four of the five bedrooms will be for patients and one is being converted into an office.
Information provided by the ministry indicates the service won't be offered until October 2025, once renovations are done and workers can be recruited.
Those renovations to the new Seven Sisters include more secure surroundings and a separate entrance for the withdrawal service.
The new service of five rooms, including the office space, is regarded as part of an overall increase in mental health and addictions assistance for the North.
Together with 10 more psychiatric spaces at Ksyen, which doubles the 10 beds at the old Mills Memorial Hospital, the 14 Terrace spaces are part of 53 additional treatment spaces for both voluntary and involuntary admissions for addictions treatment promised by the NDP provincial government in the lead up to the provincial election in the fall of 2024.
The Dawson Creek and District Hospital is to get three treatment beds while 36 are destined for the University Hospital of Northern B.C. in Prince George.
Under current provincial legislation and guidelines, people who require managed withdrawal cannot be treated involuntarily through the Mental Health Act. But there could be circumstances in which someone who was admitted under the Mental Health Act would go through managed withdrawal if that was part of their care and recovery plan.
Although modest in numbers, the Seven Sisters-based service answers a call over the decades by northwestern community and health care leaders for treatment so that northwestern residents do not need to go elsewhere for help.
The service is also being regarded as temporary until such time as a much larger permanent withdrawal management facility can be built.
If and when that happens, the five rooms will revert back to their first intended use within the Seven Sisters building.
