To Interior Health's CEO

An open letter to Susan Brown, Interior Health CEO,

We have been receiving copies of the letters you have been sending out to various members of the public and our board. You are repeatedly disseminating misinformation about Pathways Addictions Resource Centre, in those letters and elsewhere, and it must stop.

You continue to misinform the public about Pathways only having intake one afternoon a week. As I have already told you, you are wrong. While Pathways does provide open intake on Tuesday afternoons, we also provide intake for anyone who cannot make the Tuesday afternoon or who is in crisis (such as pregnancy) and just like on Tuesday they fill out paperwork, are seen by a counsellor, and a basic plan is established. Our staff have also gone to the In-Patient Unit (Psychiatry, Penticton Regional Hospital), shelters, Burdock House, and other places and completed intake there.

You stated in your letter to me that due to COVID-19 our drop-in group programs were suspended. This is incorrect as we resumed the Early Recovery group, after initially stopping all groups, via Zoom along with a Mindfulness group and a Women Thriving group. We are now running several properly distanced and populated, in person, groups.

When you now say that Interior Health will be providing Drop-In service five days a week, what does that mean? This is certainly a reversal from the FAQ Pathways received from IH regarding transition from Pathways to IH. What will the extent of that service be? When someone needs help, they need that help today not weeks later. Pathways receives calls from all over the Interior Health Authority’s area (Kamloops, Kelowna, Nelson-places you stated in your letter are already doing what you plan on doing here in Penticton) asking if we can refer them to inpatient treatment and if they can start seeing a counsellor because the wait list through IH in those areas is up to six months. This is very concerning. How you can have the audacity to tell people, “the current model and services contracted through Pathways is preventing people from accessing the full range of available supports and care” (Special to the Herald, Mar 19, 2021), is beyond me.

I will remind you of what our executive director said in her response to your Op-ed: “People using opioids can walk into Pathways and be immediately connected to a Navigator. They do not have to call, wait in line, or be put on a wait list. We have had 120 people go through our Opioid Navigator program and not one has overdosed. All have been housed, many have returned to work and been reunited with their families due to the wrap around service Pathways provides with all the other services in the community. 120 people!! We are home to an Opioid Agonist physician who also calls clients when they are in distress evenings and weekends. We provide harm reduction supplies, teach naloxone training, and give hope to parents whose children are using and are so afraid they may die.” How can you describe these as “services in isolation” and again I ask, how can you say that Pathways prevents people from accessing the supports and care they need?

You never answered several of my questions. Such as, how many client visits occurred at the Martin Street Outreach Clinic (either in person or via some form of telehealth or video) from June 01, 2020? Pathways staff have conducted 3174 in office appointments since June 01, 2020 and that is not including the hundreds of Zoom sessions. Nor did you tell me if those clients had consistent access to the same practitioner. While you did mention that support for alcohol use disorders will be included you are still emphasizing enhanced harm reduction and overdose response services. Is there going to be a safe injection site on the Martin Street premises? You also never told me who will be providing assessments for the Ministry of Children and Families so parents can work to get their children back, or who will be working with probation or the correctional facility.

IH has not given Pathways staff a reasonably detailed description of all the increased services and programs that Interior Health is going to provide so that we can reassure clients. It is unfortunate that an agreement could not have been reached that would have provided Pathways and IH with sufficient transition time and all the information needed to address all stakeholders’ concerns.

The fact that there has been such push back from the community over Interior Health’s decision to repatriate our contracts seems to have come as a surprise to you. It certainly has not been a surprise to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the work Pathways Addictions Resource Centre does in the community and surrounding areas. It does not help that Pathways has had 4 Interior Health managers and 2 interim managers in the last 8 years. It is sort of like never having the same counsellor or practitioner and having to tell the same story over again at every session. All you had to do was take the time to ask. In your letter to me you wrote that you did not have any insight into the youth prevention services (in SD 67) that Pathways provides. If you had done any investigation (it is all there at pathwaysaddictions.ca) you could have had at least some insight into what Pathways provides without even asking. Why you have never come to visit Pathways or had a real conversation with our Executive Director is a question a great number of people are asking.

So, while I know you have been invited before I would like to extend an open invitation to you to visit Pathways and engage firsthand with those who are immersed in the issues facing our clients on a daily basis so you can more fully understand the impact Pathways has on the community and the people it serves. Then, you can speak from a place of understanding and firsthand knowledge.

Finally, as was pointed out to me, it is equally unfortunate that Pathways was not prepared for this real possibility and I, as Chair, take some of the responsibility for that; however, we are here now, and we need to find a way forward... and as I was also reminded it can be done in a way which will make both Pathways and IH better providers in our communities.

Sherry Ure, ND, Chair, Pathways Addictions Resource Centre