Maiden voyage for Halifax's mobile methadone clinic

A renovated Winnebago is now officially making its rounds in the Halifax area offering methadone to addicts.

The mobile clinic made stops in Fairview and Dartmouth on Tuesday where more than a dozen addicts took their doses of methadone to help control withdrawal symptoms from opiates.

The vehicle, operated by Direction 180, is the solution to a heated debate that saw the community of Fairview speak out against a permanent clinic at a house on Dutch Village Road.

Direction 180, which currently operates a methadone clinic on Gottingen Street, bought the house and planned to put a second clinic there. When news of the plan spread, businesses in the area opposed it and started a campaign to buy them out.

The community raised more than $520,000 in one week. Of that, $100,000 was put toward renovating and operating the mobile clinic and the rest was used to cover the price of the house.

Disappointed at first, the clinic's executive director Cindy MacIsaac said she is more than happy with the compromise.

"Already we have 15 people on the roster scheduled for treatment today and we're just starting so that's significant and we have more than 300 people waiting, as you know, for treatment.

Clients are given a small dose of methadone to tie them over until there's room for full treatment at the Gottingen Street clinic.

A nurse, peer support staff and a physician man the Winnebago every Monday and Thursday.

Mixed greeting

"Most of all they're relieved that you know that the pain and despair and torture of withdrawal isn't going to be with them every day," said MacIsaac.

The mobile clinic is still a heated topic for many people who live in the area.

Diane Mullins lives across the street from where the mobile unit is parked on Jackson Road. She said she had concerns in the beginning, but has come around to the idea.

"When you see the apartment across the street and people coming and going at midnight or 2 o'clock in the morning and passing drugs out the window; that's more of a concern to me than making sure that the people who need to be treated are receiving proper treatment," she said.

Mullins said the area is rife with gun violence and drug trafficking.

The RV, formerly owned by the city of Baltimore in Maryland, will be parked in a north-end Dartmouth parking lot for 365 days a year. It'll also make regular stops at Vimy Avenue in Fairview.

Direction 180 is also working out a location in Spryfield.