EDMONTON — As reported by the Investigative Journalism Foundation, staff of Henwood Treatment Centre—Edmonton’s largest public voluntary addiction treatment facility—have been abruptly informed by Recovery Alberta that the centre’s 62 residential treatment beds have been permanently shuttered.
Dozens of workers are facing layoff or relocation, and the nearly 600 Albertans who were on the months-long wait list for admission to Henwood must now seek treatment elsewhere. Wait times for other voluntary addiction treatment are no longer tracked by the Alberta government, but as per the IJF reporting, there are currently only three adult addiction treatment beds open in Edmonton.
“The Alberta government is closing much-needed public treatment spaces with virtually no justification, consideration, or accountability to the hundreds of Albertans who are waiting for this care,” said Chris Gallaway, executive director of Friends of Medicare. “Addictions care is health care, and we should be treating it as such. Instead, this government keeps needlessly disrupting Albertans’ access to the care they need.”
Questions remain as to what the government intends to do with the site. However, documents obtained by IJF show Henwood has already previously been identified as an interim site for “compassionate intervention” beds—also known as involuntary or forced treatment.
A record number of drug poisoning deaths were recorded in Edmonton in 2025, at 770. Yet the Alberta government has proceeded with ideological—and often untruthful—efforts to close life-saving supervised consumption services in the city and elsewhere, and has forged full steam ahead with under-regulated private and for-profit services and forced treatment, despite evidence to show this approach could very well result in further harm and more fatalities.
“The government's approach clearly isn’t about expanding capacity for Albertans in need of support for substance or mental health issues. It’s about accelerating an ideological agenda of privatization through Recovery Alberta, and enabling the growth of the for-profit recovery industry,” said Gallaway. “All of the decisions being made about our health care need to be based on the best medical evidence, not politics. Too much is at stake for this government to continue to ignore the full spectrum of care Albertans need during this crisis.”
An audit of Recovery Alberta by the Auditor General is still underway, announced amid the office's ongoing investigation into the allegations of potential corruption in how health care contracts have been awarded to private surgical companies in Alberta.
News of this closure comes just days before the 25th annual International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) on August 31, a day on which we commemorate lives lost to potentially preventable drug poisoning, and advocate for evidence-based action.
Friends of Medicare continues to urge Albertans to support our calls for urgent, evidence-based action to save lives in the drug poisoning crisis, and to attend an IOAD event in their community. Find a list events being held in many communities in Alberta and across the country here: overdoseday.com/canada/
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