Non-profit concerned about province’s outlook on overdose crisis after funding rejection

A Saskatoon recovery centre is worried that its rejection for provincial funding is sending the wrong message in regards to the ongoing overdose crisis.

Tanner Perratt, the co-founder and business manager for Possibilities Recovery Centre Inc., said he has made two formal requests to the province for funding, with both receiving rejection letters over the past year. Perratt provided the rejection letters from the province to 650 CKOM.

“Our initial ask, we asked for $600,000. And that gave us the ability to operate what we are operating right now, as well as to add a second group (for the program). When we weren’t getting any responses on that, we didn’t really get any direction as to why they might be taking their time on it,” he said, before explaining that a second ask was made to the province just so the facility could continue to operate.

“Our second ask was about $350,000, and that would keep us in operation for one year for our group of 10 to 12 people. Our response that we got was that there currently are programs in place that (provincial officials) are satisfied that people can access these programs … and they are not in a position to support our group.”

Perratt said the rejection made those at the organization feel that the province wasn’t acknowledging the addictions or mental health crisis going on in Saskatchewan. Since 2020, 420 throughout the province have either died of a confirmed or suspected drug overdose — a record-setting 233 in 2020 alone. Of those 420, 75 have occurred since January of this year.

“It almost seemed like they were satisfied with the amount of supports currently available that they were funding,” Perratt continued.

Damon Grant would have been celebrating his 49th birthday Sunday, but his family lost him to an overdose in January. (Janelle Kincaid/Submitted)

In a recent story, Weyburn’s Janelle Kincaid said she struggled to find a recovery spot for her husband, Damon Grant. She stated the waitlists were within a month at some recovery centres. Grant died of a drug overdose on Jan. 14.

Access to care has also been brought up by NDP Leader Ryan Meili, one of the asks he made when he called upon the province Tuesday for “serious action” to be taken on the overdose crisis in Saskatchewan.

“We need to make sure treatment is available everywhere … We want to see that remote support so that if someone isn’t able to access an on-site (location) that they’re still able to have remote, observed use,” Meili said Tuesday.

The first patients were treated at the Possibilities facility in Saskatoon on Feb. 3, 2020. The organization said it was planning to integrate an online, telehealth-style program by its one-year anniversary. Instead, when COVID hit on March 12, things needed to change.

“We found a smart conferencing camera that follows the voices in the room … It integrates it with people online that log in with Zoom. To date, we’ve reached people from Vancouver, Calgary, as well as the Kindersley area (and) Luseland. It’s integrated quite well,” he explained.

Perratt said it isn’t on their radar to launch a remote safe injection site, but both the online and in-person treatment align together, allowing people to get the same treatment in the facility as that obtained by someone in Vancouver or Calgary.

“We do understand that there is a harm reduction side of treatment,” Perratt said before Kayla MacKay — the program manager of the facility — explained that Possibilities supports the medically assisted programs as well.

“We do have quite a few clients that have been a part of that program,” MacKay said. “They’re either on naloxone or methadone, and they will partake fully in groups with us with no issue.”

The difference of many other recovery centres in the province and Perratt’s Possibilities Recovery is the implementation of ‘the Matrix’ model. MacKay said others use parts of the model, created in 1985 in Los Angeles originally to deal with the cocaine crisis, but no other facility in the province offers what Possibilities does.

“Our program runs for 16 weeks, but we run five days a week,” she explained. “We’ve added in additional pieces. We added in mental wellness, we added in additional family groups (and) early recovery, based on the four themes or topics the Matrix recognized were important … to enhance the program.”

MacKay said in May, the organization had set up a meeting with current Health Minister Paul Merriman. At the time, he was the Minister of Social Services.

NDP Leader Ryan Meili speaks at a media conference in front of Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon on March 9, 2021. (Brady Lang/650 CKOM)

Upon hearing the agenda of Possibilities before the meeting was to be held, discussing mental health and addiction for those on social assistance to access programming, MacKay said the meeting was cancelled.

“We were told it wasn’t on his mandate to deal with this, so he directed us to the Minister of Health,” she said of Jim Reiter.

Perratt said talks fell through in setting up a meeting with Reiter too.

The co-founder said the feedback on the actual program has been great, now over a year into operations. He said clients feel supported and were completely satisfied.

“A lot of them had been through the residential, in-patient programs. And although they were successful when they came out of the program, (that) is when there was no support and they ended up (spiralling) back into the old behaviours,” Perratt explained.

Possibilities Recovery Centre Inc. is currently funded by “a few charitable donations,” according to Perratt. He said patients are paying for their services, but if they can’t pay at that time, adjustments are made to make the services affordable.

“It’s costing us roughly around $14,000 per 16-week program to operate. So people are having to pay for that out of pocket. There’s a lot of people that can’t afford it (and a lot) in some way, shape or form that can afford it. But it causes an extreme amount of anxiety for them,” he explained.

The latest ask by Possibilities for funding was for the most recent budget cycle on Feb. 16. The rejection letter was dated March 3, stating the province did “appreciate the efforts” of the organization, but that the province was “not currently in a position to support a pilot project, or ongoing operating funding.”

“As you may be aware, the government has made significant investments in treatment for substance use disorders over the past several years. As resources permit, additional operations can be considered in the future,” said the letter, signed by Brad Havervold, executive director of the Ministry of Health’s Community Care Branch.

“I regret my response cannot be more positive,” the letter signs off.

MacKay had some thoughts to share on the government’s decision.

“I think it’s actually quite negligent, to be honest,” she said.

Perratt said there is no current waitlist for his program, which would immediately lessen some of the load on waitlists across Saskatchewan. When it comes to the actual program, though, it focuses a lot of effort on long-term recovery, not just a 28-day rehabilitation stay. When speaking to other managers at other recovery facilities, Perratt said they seem to struggle with repeat clients.

He said if his program is able to cover after those 28 days, more flexibility would be felt from the system as a whole. Perratt also had a message for the province.

“Please, take this seriously. We can help them, but we need some funding support to do that,” he said before MacKay added her thoughts.

“People are dying. And unnecessarily.”

Province responds to concerns raised

In a prepared statement, the Ministry of Health said it is distributing its services and supports provincewide “rather than focusing funds on a single site.”

The response did not name Possibilities Recovery Centre Inc. specifically, or explain why funding was not given. Instead, the statement listed what the Ministry of Health has committed in its mental health and addictions services.

“In 2020-21, the health system is investing more than $434.5 million in mental health and addictions programs and services, including a $630,000 increase for harm reduction. This brings our total investment in harm reduction programs and services to $1.75 million in 2020-21, an increase of more than 350% since 2007,” the statement reads.

“Distributing these services and supports across the province … is an important step in ensuring our citizens have equitable access to life-saving supplies. We continue to collaborate with stakeholders and consider additional addictions services on an on-going basis.”

The response also pointed to new initiatives implemented this year to “help address substance use in Saskatchewan.” That outlined 20 new inpatient beds and four pre-treatment addictions beds in Estevan, addiction health-care workers in emergency departments in Regina and Saskatoon and continued “education programming” for doctors and pharmacy professionals to increase access to opioid substitution therapy.