Wait times to access addiction care a barrier for some, drug users and advocates say

Some drug users and advocates in New Brunswick are calling on the province to do more to help people trying to recover from addiction. They say long wait times to access treatment are having some people give up and relapse. The government says it's working to fix gaps in the system. According to the Department of Health, the median wait time to get into detox is five days. But CBC spoke with a drug user who had a different experience. We agreed not to reveal his last name to protect his privacy and potential impact on his family. Andrew says he went through multiple stints in detox over the years to treat his fentanyl and crystal meth addiction. He says this time he decided to try and quit on his own. I could have waited to go to detox, but I had already waited five weeks and I hadn't heard from them. Just decided to do it on my own. Three or four people that I've talked to that really were struggling, couldn't get in, and then kinda just said, screw this, I'm just gonna go back. Warren Maddox, executive director of the Fredericton Homeless Shelters, says he often sees people who've gone through detox return to the streets. He says for one, it's extremely difficult to get off drugs, so relapses are common. But he says the province could be helping more people than it is at the moment. We need more detox beds. There's not enough for western New Brunswick. There's not enough New Brunswick-wide. The problem is getting bigger and bigger. You need to, you know, be able to combat the fire. According to the Department of Health, the number of detox beds has remained mostly steady since at least 2016, with a total of 77 across the province. That number could soon change. The minister responsible for addictions and mental health services says some of those beds might be transformed into what he calls flex beds, where people could stay longer and get ongoing treatment following detox. Some of these detox beds that we have now sometimes are sitting vacant despite the five-day wait and the 191-person wait list. So those are about... Maximizing space and using the resources that we have at our disposal. McKeith says a detox bed may sit empty if a patient changes their mind about getting treatment and there's a transition period until the bed is refilled. At the end of the day we really want to focus on the longer term treatments. We do feel that there are sufficient capacity for detox but the bigger focus is on the long-term therapeutic treatment. McKeith says there are currently 48 beds at live-in treatment centers managed by the province, and 50 more are set to open progressively over the next year at a new facility on the Kingston Peninsula. Current wait times to get into rehab are three to four months, a wait that critics worry is another chance for people to fall through the cracks. In the meantime, some users say they also try to take care of each other. Michael Doucette is in recovery. He says he's never experienced an overdose but has witnessed them. So I used administered Narcan through nasal and needle in their leg and administered CPR. As some believe the danger of drug toxicity just doesn't seem to let up, Doucette plans to continue being a helping hand. If you find yourself in a place where you're down and out, it's almost a certainty that somebody will find Find you and meet you where you are, even if it's another user. We tend to support each other in those situations where there's nothing left.