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Primary Care Network gears up for annual Fun Run Proceeds help to support the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre

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6 minute read

By Mark Weber

It’s time to hit the trails for an exceptional cause with the annual Primary Care Network Fun Run right around the corner.

This year’s event is slated to run May 7th in the Capstone area near downtown.

Anyone can take part, and participants can opt to sign up for 3km, 5km or 10km routes.

There is even a ‘Dog Jog’ this year for those who would like their furry friends to join in the fun.

Organizers point out that you can also choose to walk if you like.

The youngest members of the family can also get involved via the ‘500m Little Surfers’ and the ‘100m Boogie Babies’ events.

“The Fun Run is something that really fits with us – we are all about health promotion, encouraging people to be active and also encouraging families to get out there,” explains Lorna Milkovich, the PCN’s executive director. “And any funds being raised are going to the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre.”

Although some registration deadlines have passed, it’s not too late to get involved. Folks are welcome to even come down on May 7th and sign up. “There have been different deadlines for certain prizes and things, but you can do ‘walk-on’ registration,” she said.

“It’s also basically accessible to anyone!”

Adding to the action-packed day is a special ‘beach’ theme this year, according to the web site.

“You may have to use a little imagination to feel the sand between your toes as you run/walk your 10km, 5km, or 3km route, so put on your best sun gear to help set the mood – we’re thinking bright colours, fun shades and beach hats!”

And it’s not just about the Fun Run – there are loads of activities planned through the day from a Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre Charity barbecue, face painters and lots of family activities and games by the Red Deer Family Resource Network to the CACAC Beer Gardens and Games area (partnered with Troubled Monk) and the Courage Cup Ball Hockey Tournament and After-Party.

The Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the protection and recovery of children.

“The organization was founded in response to a community crisis,” notes the web site. “An epidemic of youth suicides hit hard in Central Alberta, sparking overdue conversations and the need for a solution.

“A community coalition was formed with a goal to provide accessible mental health resources for adolescents, but the vision quickly expanded thanks to Sheldon Kennedy. It takes courage for a child to come forward and share that someone has hurt them – we are here to listen without judgment, provide a safe and comfortable space for them to share their story, to provide guidance and support – and to ultimately give them back the chance of a healthy future.”

In the meantime, things continue to be very busy at the PCN – staff members are gearing up to run a bike corral at the Farmer’s Market as they’ve done for years, said Milkovitch. It’s a popular public service to protect people’s bikes while they check out the market.

And of course, on the medical/health side of things, there is plenty going on via the organization’s multitude of very helpful programs.

Staff are hosting a Health Café with the City of Red Deer and Alberta Health Services on May 17 at 1 p.m., and it’s going to be on ‘Year of the Garden’.

It’s all part of a City of Red Deer initiative to encourage folks to get outside and be more active by gardening through the spring and summer.

And on June 15, a Health Café on ‘Post-partum Mental Health’ is set to start at 1 p.m. This session will be hosted by Ivy Parsons of AHS and PCN Family Nurse Michelle Abbott.

There are also plenty of regular programs through the PCN, which are free of charge, to check out from Anxiety to Calm, Happiness Basics and Moving on With Persistent pain to Relationships in Motion, Sleep, and Journey
Through Grief.

Others include My Way to Health (formerly Health Basics), Strong and Steady (which focuses on bolstering one’s strength and flexibility) and H.E.A.R.T.S. which has been designed to help families through the loss of a child during pregnancy or shortly after birth.

Several individual programs are available as well from help with diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol to pharmacy queries to assistance with everything from quitting smoking to learning more about housing or financing.

For more about the PCN, check out reddeerpcn.com or call the office at 403-343-9100.

For complete details about the PCN Fun Run, check out www.reddeerfunrun.com.

Born and raised in Red Deer, Mark Weber is an award-winning freelance writer who is committed to the community. He worked as a reporter for the Red Deer Express for 18 years including six years as co-editor. During that time, he mainly covered arts and entertainment plus a spectrum of areas from city news and health stories to business profiles and human interest features. Mark also spent a year working for the regional publication Town and Country in northern Alberta, along with stints at the Ponoka News and the Stettler Independent. He’s thrilled to be a Todayville contributor, as it allows him many more opportunities to continue to focus on the city and community he not only has a passion for, but calls home as well.

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Community

SPARC Red Deer – Caring Adult Nominations open now!

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Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!

Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!

To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)

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Addictions

‘Harm Reduction’ is killing B.C.’s addicts. There’s got to be a better way

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Susan Martinuk 

B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy

Since 2016, more than 40,000 Canadians have died from opioid drug overdoses — almost as many as died during the Second World War.
Governments, health care professionals and addiction experts all acknowledge that widespread use of opioids has created a public health crisis in Canada. Yet they agree on virtually nothing else about this crisis, including its causes, possible remedies and whether addicts should be regarded as passive victims or accountable moral agents.

Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.

In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.

B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.

But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.

Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.

According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”

In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.

Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.

This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.

The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”

The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.

Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.

Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.

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