
Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas continues to advocate to the province the need for a substance abuse and mental health treatment centre in the B.C. Interior.
Dyas and Kelowna city manager Doug Gilchrist spent much of last Wednesday touring the Red Fish Healing Centre last week.
Red Fish, which opened more than three years ago on the grounds of the former Riverview Hospital property, has an impressive success record, one Dyas says can be replicated in the interior.
“The services run very well through the health authority down there with a success rate of…basically for every 10 individuals that go into the centre, nine of them are successful when they leave there,” said Dyas at the conclusion of Monday’s city council meeting.
“The centre itself is something we have been advocating to try and bring up to the interior collectively for all the communities and find some place to put such a centre in our communities.”
Red Fish is a 105-bed treatment facility that treats patients with complex mental health and substance abuse issues where all previous attempts at treatment have failed.
“We’ll be continually speaking to all our neighbouring communities as we kind of move forward to see what is available for that type of treatment centre for mental health and addiction services within our community.
“It’s something we are going to continue to work at through the health authority to bring to our community.”