Direction 180 staff petition for more funding

By Mark Hodgins

HALIFAX – The executive director of a local methadone clinic is calling for more funding.

Cindy MacIsaac with Direction 180 says staff have started a petition at change.org asking both the municipality and the province for help.

Direction 180 currently has 460 clients, for whom it provides harm-reduction services to help them live safely with their addictions.

Direction 180 provides doses of opioids, which are taken orally, in order to safeguard people against the health risks associated with injection.

MacIsaac said the organization has let go of their Spryfield location and has taken their mobile-care service off of weekends, forcing people have to get to one of the clinics in Halifax, Dartmouth or Fairview for treatment.

“It’s really challenging to continue to do the work that we’re here to do with limited resources,” explained MacIsaac, who said that best practice suggests $6,000 per year be spent on each client, but Direction 180 is only able to spend about $1,200.

“We treat the largest number of people out of all the programs in Nova Scotia, and we receive the least amount of funding from the department of health,” said MacIsaac. “So we have been in a deficit and there have been lay-offs.”

Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Robert Strang says the work done by organizations like Direction 180 is important “both preventing and treating addictions, and preventing the spread of blood-borne pathogens.”

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