Re: “Sick and tired of being sick and tired?” Sept. 6.
It is good to see newspaper and other efforts to raise awareness, and reduce stigma, of chemical-dependency treatment and recovery.
But it is remiss not to note the eroded availability of affordable treatment since the current government started its campaign for privatization of formerly public services.
Yes, excellent treatment can be had at centres like Edgewood in Nanaimo or the Cedars in Cobble Hill — by those who can afford several thousand dollars for a 28-day program. Incidentally, before privatization, the Cedars was a residential-care facility for people with brain injury, an invaluable service lost when privatization flipped this facility over to for-profit health care.
I worked in addictions from the mid-1990s until retirement in 2007. I used to exclaim to my former U.S. treatment colleagues that I finally worked in medical services with the only ethical and moral eligibility requirements: “You want this treatment, you need this treatment; you get this treatment.” Eligibility wasn’t dependent on having either the right type of (expensive) medical insurance or the personal or family wealth to pay cash.
“Universal access” to treatment for the medical condition of chemical dependency has sorely deteriorated under the current government.
Paul Glassen
Nanaimo
