St. Joseph’s Care Group

Mino Ginawenjigewin, or “the act of caring for people,” is the name of a new site for addiction services at the 500 Oliver Road site of St Joseph’s Care Group.

The site will deliver a range of services all in one place, including:

• Safe Sobering, allowing intoxicated individuals to recover from the effects of alcohol or other substances in safety.
• Withdrawal Management, providing services for individuals suffering from withdrawal symptoms due to addiction.
• Rapid Access Addiction Medicine, offering services such as counselling and medication for those with substance issues.
• Transportation and Outreach, assisting those requiring services with transportation to and from the clinic, eliminating barriers to care.

The clinic’s services are offered under the umbrella of St. Joseph’s Indigenous Health division, known as N’doo’owe Binesi.

Mino Ginawenjigewin is meant to offer a culturally sensitive space for its patients.

While some of the clinic’s services were already on offer, now they will all be available in one all-encompassing site.

St. Joseph’s Care Group President and CEO Janine Black frames the new clinic as an integration of cultural services and addiction services.

Black explains that the process of recovering from addiction can take months or even years, and it requires willingness on the part of the addicted person.

“It’s really up to the individual who’s on their journey to decide what they’re ready to face in the moment,” Black remarks. “For every individual, it’s going to be different. Some people will just smoothly go along that journey. Others may get to a point and fall back off it, and then come back on.”

Reena Larabee is the manager of traditional healing with St. Joseph’s N’doo’owe Binesi division.

She sees the creation of the new clinic as a marker of reconciliation, following the deaths of Indigenous men Don Mamawka and Roland McKay in police custody in 2014 and 2017, respectively.

The two men were the subject of an inquest in 2022 that sparked a wider conversation about how addiction issues should be handled.

“Historical harms are being acknowledged… in particular recommendations were made for culturally safe care in a safe sobering site,” Larabee says.

Larabee says the clinic reduces barriers to care for vulnerable individuals. She argues that in many cases, neither police custody nor emergency rooms are the correct solution.

She argues that offering a culturally sensitive space can help those individuals progress towards entering withdrawal management, the next step of getting clean.

Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland facilitated discussions between the provincial government and St. Joseph’s, ultimately resulting in a $2.9 million investment from the province for improving addiction services.

Holland says that with the new site in place, the experts can now evaluate to see what is working to continue improving their services.

For Janine Black, a chief metric of success for the new site will be diverting visits to the emergency room. The safe sobering site may be preferable for those going through intoxication, but it can also help to take pressure off of emergency services, allowing paramedics and ambulances to focus on other situations.

The creation of the Mino Ginawenjigewin site represents the turning of a page for Reena Larabee: “I am really happy to see that there’s an element of truth and reconciliation, and finding better ways forward.”

“It’s really just about working together in a two-eyed seeing approach and learning if there are things we can do better within systems to work together towards positive changes,” Larabee adds.