'We've been having a lot of funerals': Cote First Nation opens Indigenous-led, on-reserve detox program

Cote First Nation, Sask. -

Cote First Nation unveiled a new on-reserve and Indigenous run detox program on Tuesday.

All staff members involved with the program have dealt with their own addictions struggles or have close family ties to the addictions crisis.

Shantel Cote, who has struggled with alcohol, is the programs manager in training and said she knows the hardships addictions can create.

“I grew up in a community that was broken, and I saw my family and my friends all branch out to different types of addictions.”

Cote is now working under Clifford Bird, who launched Montreal Lake Cree Nation’s detox centre.

“The [Cote] community is very committed to having all the right pieces that will assist people to not only come out of addictions, but to stay away from addictions,” Bird said.

The program is funded by the band and Indigenous Services Canada, opening without provincial funding.

Chief George Cote said he and council have been dealing with an increasing amount of deaths.

“There's been a lot of deaths as a result of crystal meth and other addictions our people have been struggling with. The last five years I've been here, we've been having a lot of funerals,” Cote explained.

Bird added that many of those deaths have been suicides.

“Most of the deaths within the past year are from suicides and overdoses. I believe they lost just under 60 individuals within the past year,” he said.

The program looks at its clients and workers as relatives, someone you can lean on if you’re in need of help.

The programs’ nine beds have been at capacity since it opened in early March.

“We think it’s a way of numbing pain or dealing with the situation,” Shantel said. “We, as people, need to break that cycle. To understand that normal to us is sobriety, a healthy lifestyle. That there is hope to live a healthy lifestyle and that is normal,” she said.

When asked where she hopes the facility goes, Cote said she wants to move into medical detox.

Medical detox offers drugs to help with withdrawal symptoms for those who are in recovery, rather than non-medical, where the drugs need to be purchased from a pharmacy off site.

Cote also hopes to expand the facility itself to create more of a continuum of health care for those struggling with addictions across the area.