Goldcorp announces BC-CfE to lead new addictions health fellowship program

published on September 21, 2012

The field of addiction medicine in B.C. is set to make huge advances after resource firm Goldcorp Inc. announced it is making a $5-million donation to two unique addiction and mental health programs serving Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.

The neighbourhood has the largest concentration of injection drug users in the country, with approximately 7,000 of its 16,000 residents identified as injection drug users. As a result, the Downtown Eastside suffers from high rates of infectious diseases, including HIV and hepatitis C, and overdose deaths stemming largely from high rates of untreated drug addiction. Making matters worse, residents are commonly unable to access drug and alcohol treatment, in large part because of the limited number of specialized addiction medicine physicians.

Of the $5-million gift from Goldcorp Inc., $3 million will be used to address this shortfall through the establishment of the Goldcorp Fellowship in Addiction Medicine at St. Paul’s Hospital, which will be Canada’s only addiction medicine training program west of Ontario.

Led by Dr. Evan Wood, co-director of the Urban Health Research Initiative at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the Fellowship in Addiction Medicine will address a critical lack of skilled addiction medicine specialists in the province by providing training in addictions medicine to 20 fellows over five years, who would support ongoing treatment strategies in the community.

“A very limited number of physicians in B.C. are trained in addiction medicine, making it difficult for vulnerable populations to access much-needed drug and alcohol treatment,” said Dr. Wood. “Goldcorp’s generous funding for this Fellowship will create the capacity to increase care and advance research to revolutionize public health in these communities and beyond.”

In addition to increasing the number of skilled physicians with addiction and mental health expertise, the Fellowship will help create leadership for structural change in providing care for this population. Critical to that structural change will be connecting and engaging vulnerable people to treatment and care, especially those at-risk of transmitting HIV.

“Given the serious medical harms associated with injection drug use, especially the increased risk of transmitting HIV and hepatitis C, there is a clear and urgent need for the expansion of evidence-based addiction treatment and mental health services,” said Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE). “This new addictions fellowship is a tremendous step forward in the fight against HIV and AIDS in this province. We are very appreciative of Goldcorp’s commitment and support for mental health and addiction treatment.”

British Columbia has established itself as a global leader in research and evidence-based interventions to fight HIV and AIDS. The BC-CfE-pioneered the Treatment as Prevention strategy, which involves widespread HIV testing and provision of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) to medically eligible HIV-positive people with HIV. As a result, in B.C. new HIV diagnoses fell from approximately 900 cases per year in the early 1990’s to 289 in 2011. Similarly, B.C. has experienced a dramatic decline in new HIV diagnoses attributable to injection drug use, from more than 400 in 1996 to 50 in 2010.

In addition to the $3 million donation to the Fellowship, another $2 million of Goldcorp’s donation will be used to support the Assertive Community Treatment program (ACT), an intensive, voluntary outreach mental health service operated by Vancouver Coastal Health that supports people in the Downtown Eastside with severe, persistent mental illness and addiction.

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

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Goldcorp announces BC-CfE to lead new addictions health fellowship program

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