New clinic offers full-time health services for street youth.
Street youth in Centretown now have a familiar place to go when seeking health treatment.
The Youth Services Bureau of Ottawa and the Sandy Hill Community Health Centre opened the doors to a full-time health clinic for street youth in late October, which combines primary care, mental-health services and addictions treatment.
“Street youth are a population that generally overuses our health-care system, but they tend to be underserviced,” says the health centre's executive director, David Gibson.
Street youth experience a variety of complex issues relating to mental health, addictions and chronic pain, and generally have higher mortality rates than youth who are living in stable housing.
“They are living day-to-day, hour-to-hour, and they’re not in a stable environment so their life is in crisis most of the time,” says Gibson.
“The type of access they require needs to be something that meets them at their life situation and at their level.”
The Champlain Local Health Integration Network funded the $250,000 project, which Gibson says he believes illustrates a new future of how services need to be delivered.
“The cost of the clinic is just a drop in the bucket,” he says.
They anticipate helping up to 1,200 street youth, an estimate based on the number currently living on the street and in shelters.
“These services are much needed and long overdue,” YSB executive director Alex Munter said in a press release. “This is a great start to a service we are sure will adapt and grow to meet the needs of youth, while taking pressure off emergency rooms and ambulances.”
But some people who have lived this lifestyle say that bringing in a clinic like this should have been done years ago.
Like so many street youth in Centretown, Janna Dickinson – who was homeless at 15 – learned to survive on her own.
But when she was 16, an infection in her arm sent her to the emergency room.
“I went to a clinic, and because I was a street kid they didn’t want to deal with me,” she says.
“The doctor gave me ibuprofen and a muscle relaxant and said, ‘Have a nice day.’ I didn’t know any better – he said I was fine.”
Hours later, she lay on the operating table and doctors scrambled to save her from flesh-eating disease.
Dickinson underwent six surgeries and was in the hospital for about two months.
All of that could have been solved by having this type of clinic,” says Dickinson, who now, at 22, is a harm reduction advocate and leads youth empowerment committees. She also worked at the YSB for three years.
The partnership to build the clinic began with a report issued in 2008 by consultant KPMG, which was commissioned by the YSB to develop a business plan to establish a drop-in health clinic focused on the needs of Ottawa’s street youth.
Based on this research, 35 per cent of emergency room visits by these youth could have been resolved by a family doctor or a nurse practitioner.
KPMG suggests the new clinic could potentially save the health care system up to $265,000 in the first year by reducing risks of illnesses and deferring emergency room visits.
After being in and out of emergency rooms nearly 20 times, Dickinson says she is happy to see the new YSB clinic is creating a familiar environment for street youth.
“You’re walking into it not feeling like you have to prove yourself,” she says. “I think the majority of youth that access the services at YSB are really supporting this.”
Staffing for the clinic includes a nurse practitioner, addictions and mental health case managers for youth, a co-ordinator and an addictions and mental health intake worker.
“We’re not here to judge,” says Gibson.
“We’re here to ensure that Ottawa’s street youth stay healthy in whatever choices they make in their life, because a lot of times, they don’t have a lot of choices.”
More than 60 people visited the 147 Besserer St. location on its opening day.
Health services are offered between 2:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., Monday to Friday.