The 12-bed facility operates out of a renovated historic home at 24 Paddock Wood.
Article by Joelle Kovach, Peterborough Examiner
Paddock Wood, Peterborough’s first publicly funded addiction treatment facility, now has withdrawal management services.
The new service was added in late May and has not had a wait list since.
“That program has fairly easy access at this point in time,” said Donna Rogers, executive director of Fourcast (the addiction help agency that operates the facility). “I think we have open beds just about all the time.”
The 12-bed facility operates out of a renovated historic home at 24 Paddock Wood in Peterborough’s north-east end.
It helps men with addiction to alcohol or drugs. The nearest similar facility to Peterborough — in Oshawa — is for women.
Paddock Wood is the first facility of its kind in Peterborough. It has six beds in private rooms for withdrawal management (for three- to five-day stays) and six bedrooms for residential addiction treatment (a 35-day program).
When it opened in early November, Paddock Wood admitted men for the 35-day treatment program. Withdrawal management was added about seven months later.
The Fourcast website describes withdrawal management as “a treatment service available to people who want to make changes to their substance use and need help to get through the withdrawal period.”
Paddock Wood’s programs can be accessed by self-referral. The 35-day treatment program has been busy: the wait-list is into November.
Rogers said it is not clear to her yet why there’s less demand for withdrawal management. But she says it may be because there are outpatient programs available locally.
For example, Rogers mentioned the Rapid Access Addiction Medicine outpatient clinic, operated by Peterborough Regional Health Centre with partners from Fourcast.
The RAAM clinic runs out of George Street Pharmacy (432 George St. N.) and can be accessed without an appointment or doctor referral.
Paddock Wood differs because it’s a “bed-based” service, Rogers said. And it includes a PRHC nurse practitioner on site during specified hours to assess patients, for example, or to prescribe medication.
Rogers said she’s reached out to colleagues at other facilities — there are treatment centres in Oshawa and Kingston, for example — to indicate available in-patient withdrawal management beds at Paddock Wood.
“If you’ve got anyone on the wait list from there, let us know and maybe we can offer an earlier admission,” she’s told her colleagues.
Meanwhile, Rogers said, feedback has been good for the 35-day treatment program and the completion rate has been high.
Self-referral is available for either the treatment program or withdrawal management services. For more, see fourcast.ca/programs-and-services/bed-based-services.