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Ron North said he doesn’t usually speak in front of a crowd, but decided to talk about support he received from the Lanark Integrated Frontline Team (LIFT) to get the help he needed.
“I was in rough shape. I wasn’t associating with anybody,” North said Thursday in Carleton Place, Ont.
“I was a vegetable, but now that these kind folks have come around and helped me so much I feel I owe it to them to get as better as I can. “
North said the stress of paying rent, keeping medical appointments and paperwork was overwhelming but the support of LIFT has made a difference.
“It’s not just the health bit. It’s the trust that you get from them, right off the hop,” he said.
LIFT brings together a Lanark County paramedic, a Lanark County Mental Health social worker and a nurse practitioner.
Their focus is people with addictions, no access to primary care or precarious housing situations — including those living in encampments — in the largely rural county just west of Ottawa.
The program is already touting successful outreach with more than 70 clients and almost 440 visits between mid-December and April.
“A lot of these folks, they get kind of detached from the system. Maybe they’re not so trusting. Going in there and building the rapport to bridge that gap … That’s a huge focus of the program,” Burton said.
Reid Burton, left, is the LIFT social worker. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)
The team uses a converted Lanark County ambulance outfitted with cardiac, urinary and basic blood testing equipment.
It also has supplies for people living rough such as snacks, fresh clothes and tick removal kits as well as harm reduction supplies such as naloxone, clean supplies and drug-testing gear.
“A lot of the folks that we meet are not people that I’ve seen on the 911 side, they actually try to avoid medical care,” said Angie Wallace, the paramedic on the team.
“We try to be like a one-stop shop whether you need help with your rent or you need a heart test, we can do it for you.”
The medical team has screened severe rashes, infections and even the symptoms of a heart attack.
LIFT uses a converted Lanark County ambulance as a mobile clinic to visit people experiencing precarious housing and homelessness in the rural county. (Matthew Kupfer/CBC)
“We’re not an emergent crisis response team by all means. That’s 911. However, based on the vulnerable populations that we deal with, we sometimes don’t know what we’re going to walk into,” said Jessica Cook, the team’s nurse practitioner.
Her weekly appointments with the team help people get prescriptions refilled without having to go to the emergency room — or in the case of one client, calling 911 — but also help people wary of the medical system after traumatic experiences.
“I was able to treat them and provide care for them, [provide] medications and referrals and what was a positive experience for them,” Cook said.
“We’ve already started to see a difference and I think it’s only the beginning for the county.”
The pilot program is funded through Health Canada for two years. There are plans in the work to expand the program to a second team that could focus on more of Lanark County.