What sobering centres are and why Kamloops is fighting for one

Kamloops city council and staff have been pushing the province for a sobering centre since 2016, and so far, no concrete plans for one have materialized. Sobering centres run 24 hours per day allowing intoxicated people to safely sober up under the supervision of health-care workers while removing stress from hospitals and RCMP detachments. Almost every health authority in the province has at least one sobering centre in operation but the Interior Health Authority doesn’t have any. “People die, people get sick, people get drunk and sober up over and over because we’re not helping them, we need the resources,” said Kamloops city councillor Dale Bass, who has been advocating for a sobering centre in the city since she was elected in 2018. One might wonder how a sobering centre works, what resources are needed to successfully operate one and what sort of value they bring to communities. Wes Hewitt is the director of the Port Alberni Shelter Society that has been operating a sobering and assessment centre for eight years through a contractual agreement with the Vancouver Island Health Authority. “The original intention of the site was to divert people from the emergency room so you didn’t have people under the influence tying up beds in the ER, where someone else comes in with a heart attack with no bed available and dies in the waiting room,” Hewitt said. Intoxicated individuals are taking up crucial time from paramedics or are being sent to jail cells to sober up without adequate medical staff on hand, he said. “We worked with BC Ambulance and RCMP so they can take people directly to the sobering site where in previous years they took them to the hospital and had to get them cleared first," Hewitt said. "I don’t know what the RCMP criteria is, but they can take individuals to the site rather than putting them in cells.” READ MORE: Homeless people in Kamloops without shelter, basic resources fearful as winter approaches https://infotel.ca/newsitem/homeless-people-in-kamloops-without-shelter-basic-resources-fearful-as-winter-approaches/it106694 Area shelters also send clients to the sobering site. “A lot of these clients are frequent users of the shelter system but when they’re incapacitated by substance use, shelters can’t really service their needs, you don’t want to see deaths in the shelters either,” he said. During a stay at the centre, a client can get rest, clean clothes and meal and build relationships with staff who direct them to outreach programs.  Harm reduction supplies are also given out on site. “It’s difficult to put a figure on what you’re saving in dollar amounts in the community, but its pretty immense,” Hewitt said of harm reduction. “A hepatitis case costs a minimum of $50,000 per case per year to manage, there is a huge financial benefit to cutting down the transmission of communicable diseases.” READ MORE: Addiction worker sends patients from Kelowna to Thailand to get clean https://infotel.ca/newsitem/addiction-worker-sends-patients-from-kelowna-to-thailand-to-get-clean/it106745 Staff are made up of support workers, licenced practical nurses and paramedics who go through training on trauma informed practises and cultural competency. “We spend a lot of time with clients,” Hewitt said. “When there’s opportunity to move them along in the continuum of care it’s relatively easy to do compared to a GP who can only spend a few minutes with a client, hard for those to have any great effect on a client on a personal level.” READ MORE: RCMP emergency response team called to Kamloops three times in one day https://infotel.ca/newsitem/rcmp-emergency-response-team-called-to-kamloops-three-times-in-one-day/it106687 With a shortage of medical staff across the province, one might question whether a sobering centre could adequately be staffed, but Hewitt said the overhead isn’t very high and he doesn’t have difficulty maintaining staff. “We run with just two staff on at all times and it isn’t a huge overhead, it isn’t like hiring (registered nurses) and medical staff at $120,000 a year each,” he said.   The average client stays for five to seven hours so typically each bed is servicing more than one client per day. The Port Alberni centre is 2,500 square feet and can hold up to 14 people in need if necessary. “Just an emergency room visit starts at over $1,000, then add tests or tying up a bed overnight and costs just go up,” Hewitt said. “If you have a four-bed sobering site or more its not hard to see where the financial benefit is.” The model has been effective at taking pressure off the RCMP and medical system. “We’re funded through our health authority, that’s who funds the site and there is no doubt they recognize the value of it," he said. "At the other end of the building, we run an overdose prevention site and RCMP come regularly to both sites, not to arrest people but to connect with them and deal with issues.” READ MORE: Kamloops 'mountain man' confronts hunters at gunpoint https://infotel.ca/newsitem/kamloops-mountain-man-confronts-hunters-at-gunpoint/it106779 When it comes to the safety of staff, Hewitt said staff take a course on managing hostile interactions and said in eight years he only knows of one assault at the site. The Port Alberni Sobering and Assessment Centre https://www.avopioiddialogue.com/ is part of the larger Port Alberni Shelter Society https://portalbernishelter.com/ that offers treatment and recovery beds and a working farm to help clients along a continuum of care and abstinence. Since being elected to Kamloops city council in 2018, Coun. Bass said she has relentlessly advocated to provincial health authorities for a sobering centre in the city through emails and at UBCM meetings over the years, but has “mostly been ignored.”  In December 2023, Kamloops city council and staff sent a second proposal to the Interior Health Authority https://infotel.ca/newsitem/kamloops-moves-ahead-with-sobering-centre-pitch/it102001 for a sobering centre that would cost the city $30,000. The suggested location was the Phoenix Centre which would need $2.6 million for renovations and start up costs. “This (addiction) has always been here and society never grappled with how to deal with it,” Bass said. “They never saw it as a health issue, they thought ‘oh, they’re just drunks,’ but it’s a health issue. There has been a societal shift to recognize addictions as a health care issue, we need to treat it as one.” READ MORE: 'Senseless' BC killing earns no jail time and a conditional release to Kamloops https://infotel.ca/newsitem/senseless-bc-killing-earns-no-jail-time-and-a-conditional-release-to-kamloops/it106829 Earlier this year, the BC Coroners Service held an inquest into the death of Randy Lampreau https://infotel.ca/newsitem/coroners-inquest-to-be-held-into-death-of-man-in-kamloops-rcmp-custody/it105396 who was arrested in March 2019 for public intoxication and detained in a Kamloops jail cell overnight where he went into medical distress and died. The jury examining the case listed recommendations to the City and RCMP that included a sobering centre. “All I know is that the coroner’s inquest into Randy Lampreau said this community needs a sobering centre,” Bass said. “Recently police chiefs said ‘my guys are not health-care workers and we should not be looking after people,’ because people like Randy Lampreau could die and do die. “What’s a human life worth? If you’re going to call addiction a health issue, treat it like one.”  There has been some confusion in communications https://infotel.ca/newsitem/city-hall-in-the-dark-as-future-of-proposed-kamloops-sobering-centre-unclear/it105998 from the Ministry of Health and Addictions and the Interior Health Authority regarding the City’s latest proposal for a sobering centre, and Bass is waiting until after the provincial election to seek out more information from government. 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