B.C. healing centre a model for treating concurrent disorders

A healing centre in Coquitlam, B.C. treating people with severe concurrent disorders is the only one of its kind on the continent according to the facility’s medical director.

The Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction is a 105-bed facility located on the former Riverview Hospital lands that specifically treats people with a combination of mental illness and substance use disorders.

“In the 2017 Coroner’s Report, they found that 52 per cent of people who overdosed had a mental illness,” said Dr. Nick Mathew. “So concurrent disorders are the rule, they are not the exception.”

About 350 clients are treated each year and stay for six to nine months.

They come from all over the province and to be eligible they must have been unsuccessful in other treatment programs.

According to Mathew, the program’s trauma-informed approach has been very successful in treating most of its clients.

“Ninety-two percent will get better according to the Health of Nations outcome scores that we record here,” Mathew said.

“When you look at substance use, they’re looking at the Addiction Severity Index. If you’re looking at alcohol use disorder, 90 per cent of people will get better. If you’re looking at substance use disorder, 76 per cent of people will get better.”

The facility is located on the traditional, ancestral and unceded lands of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm First Nation which contributed to the design of the centre and its therapeutic programming.

According to census data. less than five per cent of British Columbians are Indigenous – yet 30 per cent of clients at Red Fish identify as First Nations, Inuit or Metis.

With that in mind, cultural elements are woven throughout the programming and the building contains several pieces of First Nations art including the first house post to be erected on the ancestral lands of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm in 120 years.

"A lot of the time with our colonial history we were disconnected,” said Belle Beach-Alcock, the centre’s Indigenous Knowledge Keeper. “So that's a lot of the healing work that we're doing – connecting to our sacred centre, and connecting to those teachings, and connecting to ourselves and our identity."

Red Fish opened in October 2021 and cost $130 million to build and approximately $40 million per year to operate.

The province is now exploring ways to bring the model to more communities.

"There's absolutely a commitment to build more care and supports to ensure that we are providing supports for people with concurrent disorders across the province," Minister for Mental Health and Addictions Jennifer Whiteside said.

No concrete plans have been made for similar facilities just yet – but looking at the state of mental health and addictions in B.C., the need is obvious.

“There is great interest. There isn’t a model of care like this in North America,” said Mathew. "We don't see people with mild substance use disorders. We don't see people with mild psychiatric disorders so there isn't another facility like this."