Province commits $5M to study patient data for drug recovery plan
The province is pledging $5 million to establish a Crown corporation for research and to get answers about what works — and what doesn't — in the battle against soaring addiction rates for opioids and other substances.
Alberta Mental Health and Addiction Minister Dan Williams said Tuesday that the new national Canadian Centre of Recovery Excellence will conduct mental health and addiction research to inform the government in building the province's recovery model for mental health and addiction.
The bird's-eye, system-level view is expected to look at where dollars are going into the system's programs and services, and to follow through on patient results.
Research that aggregates data for evidence-based programming while protecting the privacy of Albertans will be a priority, he said.
Patients will be research subjects who will have opportunities to choose how they're identified, but not whether the batched data are collected or published. They will also be informed of how their information will be protected, Williams said, to ease concerns about privacy and patient rights.
Expect more public information available for other agencies such as social services and law enforcement, as well as media and the public, Williams said.
Expected elements include a board of up to five members, appointed by Williams, and a regional ethics board. The province will fund it, but will also partner with other organizations — Williams dropped such names as the University of Calgary, Stanford, the Harvard Recovery Institute for Research, the Manhattan Institute and the Broadbent Institute.
MENTAL HEALTH, ADDICTION PILLAR
With the dismantling of Alberta Health Services that Premier Danielle Smith set out in November, the pillar for mental health and addiction is taking shape.
“Budget 2024 will invest more than $1.55 billion to continue building the Alberta recovery model,” Tuesday's news release said. “This includes $1.13 billion to support the establishment of Recovery Alberta as the health agency responsible for mental health and addiction services.”
The Alberta recovery model will include individuals using supervised drug consumption sites being able to receive additional supports, as well as referrals, services, connections to housing or other treatment options.
But the province is drawing a line at the B.C. border.
In March 2020, British Columbia launched Safer Opioid Supply, which allows individuals at high risk of overdose to receive prescribed pharmaceutical-grade opioids free of charge in an effort to cut opioid deaths — something Alberta will “never” do, Williams said.
“There is no evidence to suggest anywhere that I know of that `safe supply' can help those who suffer from addiction in a meaningful way. As a broad policy setting, it has proven to be devastating and a disaster for the very few jurisdictions that have adopted it,” he said.
“Our system will be responding to evidence brought forward, but to be abundantly clear, the reason I take the position I do around `safe supply' is that it's abundantly clear that it's a disaster, that handing out drugs to those in the midst of an addiction crisis for our society is not helpful.”
Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan pledged last week to take similar approaches to a recovery-orientation, he said.
Williams points to the increasing commitments the government has shown over the past five years.
“We pioneered the most robust program anywhere in the world to prescribe opioid agonist therapy through the virtual program right here in Alberta, which currently provides more than 8,000 individuals with addiction treatment each and every day,” Williams said.
The province set a terrible record in 2023, with more than 1,700 deaths from drug poisoning through November, according to Alberta's Substance Use Surveillance System.
Williams said the Alberta recovery model focuses on mental health while offering same-day counselling anywhere in the province, increasing the number of youth served with mental health programs within schools and connecting them to clinical supports while continuing their education.
The province has “massively expanded” treatment capacity, with two recovery communities built and nine more underway, five of which partner with Indigenous communities.