The Progressive Conservative Party's Manitoba caucus is decrying what it says are "skyrocketing" wait times for addictions treatment in Manitoba, claiming women seeking treatment were the hardest hit, facing a 328 day wait.
The Tories sent out a press release June 8 setting out their concerns.
Progressive Conservative health critic Leanne Rowat went as far as to day that people who face addictions are "dying" while waiting for treatment facing excessive wait times.
"An adult female has to wait 28 days for an assessment and then another 100 days to get into a residential treatment program and 300 days to get into a day program," Rowat said. "We're also seeing dangerously long waiting lists in Thompson, Brandon and Ste. Rose."
To back the statement up, Rowat says that the wait time for an adult female seeking treatment at the River House Day Program went from 14 days to 300 days, while the wait time for adult males and females in Thompson jumped from 31 to 77 days.
According to Rowat, long wait times have been a problem for awhile now throughout the province.
"I think the government thought that by building a new Addictions Foundation of Manitoba (AFM) facility in Thompson - the one that opened last year - that that would address some of those needs. But based on the numbers we presented, wait times have more than doubled in the last year. Creating a building doesn't address the need for care and service."
The new $9.3 million addictions facility opened in Thompson on June 12 last year. The building is home to short and long-term residential treatment programs and offers community-based day programs including assessment, counselling, prevention, education and regional administration and treatment programs for clients living both at home and in the residential program. The building also features a cafeteria, a learning centre, a medical assessment, fitness and common room, and is placed in a wooded area with easy access to the outdoors.
Rowat says that the provincial government needs to make addictions treatment more of a priority than new infrastructure.
Jim Rondeau, NDP minister of health and healthy living, says that looking at wait times for day programs and residential programs alone means Rowat is not looking at the whole picture of how the addictions treatment system works in Manitoba.
"We have worked very, very hard to complete a provincewide system, some of which is delivered through the AFM, some of which is delivered through 15 other organizations," he explains. "Yes, some programs may have a long waiting list, so then when that happens if it's an emergency, they could be put into the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg and be dealt with there they'll send you to wherever is appropriate. Sometimes these programs are backlogged and they'll say, 'OK, if you want to get residential treatment there's a delay, but there might not be any delay for treatment to go into an evening or day program.'"
Rondeau goes on to say that Rowat, based on her statement, seems to be under the impression that there is a one-size-fits-all treatment to addictions treatment, when in reality treatment is centred towards having a variety of sources to meet a variety of situations.
The Thompson Citizen attempted to reach John Donovan, director of the AFM's Northern Region, but Donovan had not returned a call for comment by press time.
