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Could the opioid crisis end up giving the Sault its own medical school campus?

We still don't have a Level 3 withdrawal management facility. But Sault officials are angling for a bigger prize
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Sault Ste. Marie's ongoing quest for solutions to the local opioid crisis may yield an unanticipated benefit – our very own regional medical school campus, City Council learned last night.

The news was conveyed by Dr. Janice Willett, a former Ontario Medical Association president and faculty member/associate dean at Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) who's practised medicine in the Sault for 30 years.

Dr. Willett was briefing councillors on an ambitious proposal for an Ontario Mental Health and Addictions Research and Training Institute.

Promoted by a coalition of local post-secondary education institutions and health-care agencies, the idea was formally pitched behind closed doors last week to Deputy Premier and Minister of Health Christine Elliott, Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo and Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities Ross Romano.

"The institute would hopefully stimulate a NOSM campus," Dr. Willett said during what was supposed to be a 10-minute presentation last night to City Council, but ended up taking 45 minutes.

"RIght now, NOSM has two campuses. It has a campus in Sudbury and a campus in Thunder Bay," Willett said.

"Our dean... is hoping that this will be one of the springboards to allow us to expand further training positions for medical students, dietitians and others... that we train – and have a regional campus here."

There are five principal partners in the proposed mental health and addictions institute: Sault Area Hospital, Algoma University, Sault College, Northern Ontario School of Medicine and Shingwauk Kinoomaage Gamig.

All were represented at last night's City Council meeting.

Algoma University President Asima Vezina said the idea for a major mental health and addictions institute was first suggested about six months ago by Romano, when the Sault MPP met with her and Wendy Hansson, the new president and chief executive officer at Sault Area Hospital.

That meeting was supposed to be about a much-needed Level 3 withdrawal management facility.

But Romano asked them "to see if we could widen the scope around that proposal and also to create something that was a little more holistic in nature," Vezina said.

They lost no time in working up a proposal for an institute bridging indigenous knowledge with western science.

The idea is to respond to the opioid crisis and urgent needs in mental illness by:

  • developing innovative educational programs to train generations of mental health and addictions care professionals
  • leading in building a comprehensive system of prevention, treatment and healing, with a particular focus on the unique needs of northern and rural communities
  • promoting minoeyawin: good spirit, physical health and emotional and psychological well-being for all
  • creating evidence-informed, multi-location, holistic, comprehensive, inclusive, integrated, cross-sectoral health and well-being programs that span the life cycle from conception to the spirit world for all peoples in Algoma District
  • promoting a pathway to living mino bimaadiziwin through integration of indigenous knowledge and western science

Dr. Ron Common from Sault College describes the proposed initiative as "not so much an institute as an institute beyond walls."

Algoma U's Vezina says benefits would be distributed throughout the district: "Our goal is to be in every community."

"This gives Sault Ste. Marie an opportunity to be a leader," adds Dr. Willett, "We're underserved, our stats for addictions are higher than most communities, we have our police officers responding as first responders to mental health crisis. None of that's ideal. This proposal will pay it forward."

"If we choose to look at the medicine wheel that Indigenous people held forever as the balance, you can see that mental, physical, spiritual and emotional health all need to be in balance," Willett told last night's City Council meeting.

When the idea was pitched last week, "the feedback from all three ministers was very, very strong," Vezina said.

An appropriate response to the Sault's needs can only be accomplished as a partnership, the Algoma U president said.

"We all understand that by ourselves, we're just going to keep drowning. It's only together that we're going to be able to overcome this."

The proposed institute is at least three years away.

Until then, local officials stress that the opioid crisis continues to claim lives.

A Level 3 withdrawal management facility is still needed, together with other short- and medium-term measures, they say.

Despite tremendous efforts, "the reality is that we haven't been able to make the progress we needed to make to give people the supports that they need," Mayor Provenzano says.

"The system as it is currently structured is not structured to deal with an epidemic like the opioid crisis. We need additional supports."

"None of us believe that this is an immediate solution. We need to keep on trying to help people on a day-to-day basis," the mayor said.

"People aren't stealing for the sake of stealing. They're stealing because they need to to satisfy an addiction that is overwhelming."

"There are a lot of people that are in need and there are a lot of people that are in pain."

"We can't let really good projects that will help on a long-term basis take our focus off things that our community needs on an immediate basis," Provenzano said.


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David Helwig

About the Author: David Helwig

David Helwig's journalism career spans seven decades beginning in the 1960s. His work has been recognized with national and international awards.
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