Pubdate: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 Source: Peterborough Examiner, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2014 Peterborough Examiner Contact: http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/letters Website: http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2616 Author: Joelle Kovach Page: A3 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone) CLINIC MEETS VITAL COMMUNITY NEED: DOCTOR Clinic Owner Says Former Shoppers Site Will Be Full-Fledged Medical Centre, With Its Methadone Services Only a Part of What It Offers The methadone clinic is moving into the former Shoppers Drug Mart building downtown won't take up the whole space, says the doctor in charge. Dr. Clement Sun says the idea is to create a large medical building with services for the general public such as a pharmacy, walk-in clinic or a radiology lab. It's going to be your everyday medical building, Sun said - except that it will also have a methadone clinic. Since the news broke this week that the clinic is moving into that building, Sun says he's heard a lot of concerns from people. Never mind, he says: people think that opioid addicts are hopeless criminals, but he knows different. He says 60% of them return to work after treatment. They're "normal citizens," he says, and they should be able to get care for their addictions in nice, downtown buildings. "You do not shove these people in a dark corner somewhere and hope they get better," he says. The building in question is at the southeast corner of Charlotte and Aylmer streets. A Shoppers Drug Mart has been there for years. But the pharmacy is about to move to a newly-constructed building at the opposite street corner. When it moves, the unobtrusive A.C.T. methadone clinic across the street - next to Wimpy's Diner - will move in. Sun is a physician and the medical director of that clinic. He likes the concept for this particular building because people are often so ashamed to be seen walking into a methadone clinic that they avoid getting help. "This way, people just look as though they're going to the doctor," he says. Why not just move a methadone clinic into an already-established medical building? Sun says his clients face discrimination, and that methadone clinics can't otherwise be integrated easily into everyday medical buildings. This week, the head of the DBIA and the mayor disagreed on whether city council should have bought the Shoppers building. The city is planning a $4-million urban park next door, complete with a skating oval and a stage. DBIA executive director Terry Guiel thinks the city should have bought the building and made it part of the park. He said he doesn't think a methadone clinic really fits with the city's park plans, and he would have liked it as a farmer's market or a large building filled with boutiques. But Mayor Daryl Bennett said he didn't think the city had any business spending tax money to buy the building. He also said he had no problem with the plans for the methadone clinic, and that the people who use it don't deserve discrimination. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom