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October 12, 2016 - 11:08 AM
KAMLOOPS - Six new recovery beds have been opened in a Kamloops health centre to enhance mental health and substance use services for patients.
Interior Health has partnered with the Kamloops Society for Alcohol and Drug Services, also known as the Phoenix Centre. The beds will give patients with "problematic substance use" a safe, substance-free environment while awaiting treatment or returning from treatment, Interior Health says in a news release.
“Kamloops is fighting a battle right now with mental health and substance use illness,” Health Minister and Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Terry Lake says in the release. “The six new beds at Phoenix Centre are instrumental in our efforts to combat these issues and create a support system for the people who call this area home.”
Interior Health announced a plan in April to open 73 new substance use treatment beds, including 57 support recovery beds and 16 withdrawal management beds. The release says the beds are also part of the province's plan to add 500 substance use spaces across B.C. by next year.
In September, the health authority originally announced the six beds would be opening.
Interior Health says it's focusing its resources on five strategies which will shift the system away from hospitals and toward community care.
“Partnerships like these are the only way we’re going to be able to address this troubling trend here in Kamloops and throughout the area,” Kamloops Mayor Peter Milobar says in the release.
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News from © iNFOnews, 2016