Last December, Dr. Brittany Dennis and her colleagues at Road to Recovery (R2R) were caring for a patient who was struggling with the hospital environment around the holidays. This patient was aching to reconnect with her community and craving the lifestyle activities she’d once enjoyed.
“We all got together and said, ‘What can we do to help her? What can we do to make her day just a little bit better?’,” Dr. Dennis says.
And so, staff sprung into action. An occupational therapist brought in a yoga mat. Staff exchanged the patient’s hospital garb for a yoga top and pants. They plugged in an essential oil diffuser to create a calming environment so their patient could fill her cup.
This is just one of the many ways that the Road to Recovery Initiative is meeting patients where they’re at, and providing compassionate care that goes the extra mile.
An urgent need for seamless substance use care
Six British Columbians die from an overdose every single day, and demand for addiction services is climbing. Providence operates the largest and busiest interdisciplinary Clinical Addiction Program in North America. Despite this, we need to do more to address worsening overdose deaths and promote long-term recovery.
Cue Phase 1 of the historic Road to Recovery Initiative (which launched in September 2023), a comprehensive, thoughtful, and trauma-informed system that ensures people can access addiction treatment when they may need or want it.
In BC, people with substance use issues face daunting hurdles – including a lack of stable housing, social supports, employment, financial resources, and access to safe medical care – that make it more challenging to avoid a relapse.
R2R is changing that.
“We’re able to have that seamless coordination of care that didn’t exist before,” says Dr. Dennis. “Road to Recovery is removing the barriers we’ve seen our patients face over and over again.”
Improving access to withdrawal management and transition beds
When a person is ready for recovery, they can frequently wait weeks or months for withdrawal management (detox). Once they’re admitted and complete the difficult experience of withdrawal, many have nowhere to go – and simply return to the situation that led them to use substances in the first place.
This cycle is distressing to physicians like Dr. Geneviève Kerkerian, an addiction medicine specialist who has been working at Road to Recovery since it opened.
“It’s heartbreaking at other detox facilities when people have to be discharged into the street until their treatment bed is ready, and that may be three months,” she says. “It’s unrealistic to expect that then they won’t relapse.”
R2R offers people a seamless transition between every stage of their recovery journey. It has drastically reduced wait times, ensuring access to those who need it most within much shorter time frames – often 24 to 72 hours. People begin their journey in withdrawal management beds, then can move into transition beds, and subsequently short-term stay beds – with plenty of support along the way – to set them up for success.
This entire process is patient-led, where staff meet people where they’re at and create individualized plans to meet their needs.
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