CLINIC TOO CLOSE TO SCHOOL PARENTS/PROTESTORS SAY

This was taken from The Hamilton Spectator online newspaper. The article can be found at http://www.thespec.com/News/Local/article/639182
Just another example of people who have no idea what ORT is really about.
CONCERNED ABOUT THEIR KIDS
Clinic too close to school: parents
September 22, 2009
Daniel Nolan
The Hamilton Spectator
BURLINGTON (Sep 22, 2009)
The director of a clinic which will dispense methadone to patients suffering pain has failed to quiet community concerns that it may pose a threat to students at a nearby elementary school.
Kim Paumier, clinical director of the proposed Wellbeings clinic at 444 Plains Rd. E., across from Maplehurst Public School, stressed to residents last night the facility is a pain management and dependency clinic and has been wrongly labelled a methadone clinic in public debates over the last few weeks. She said it will be dispensing methadone as one of its numerous treatments, but admitted she couldn't say yet how many patients would be treated with methadone nor if any recovering heroin addicts will visit the facility.
She also couldn't say what hours it will have and refused to say who owned the clinic, saying that was a private business. She estimated it would treat eight to 12 patients an hour and that they would be leaving the clinic "and returning to their lives and jobs."
"We are not only going to transform the lives of our patients, but we will give back to our community," Paumier said. "We will change and evolve."
More than 400 people attended the meeting in the gymnasium of Holy Rosary School, just west of the proposed clinic in a heritage house which once housed a car lot business. The overwhelming majority expressed opposition in barbed comments and loud applause when a resident spoke out against the site.
Dozens of residents peppered Paumier with questions and some carried signs, such as retired executive Dick Hamer whose sign read 'Meth clinic does not belong in a school zone.'
A large sign underneath moderator Dwight Ryan's podium said 'Say No to Meth near our school.'
Hamer, like others, said he was not opposed to the clinic but only to the location. He believed a more appropriate site might be at the hospital.
"I'm concerned about my grandkids," he said. "My concern is that even if it is one or two per cent of the clientele that are going to be attending this meth clinic, the one or two per cent could influence them in a way that would be negative to their development."
Scott Dobson said the clinic would be better in an industrial area.
Some supported the clinic, and admonished the crowd. One man compared the opposition to racism in the Deep South.
"I feel like I'm in southern Mississippi here," said the man. "I feel terrible."
Councillor Rick Craven, who admitted the issue could have been handled better instead of first bursting into the pages of the newspapers, said he had asked the clinic operators to relocate when public opposition developed, but they declined. He got routine planning approvals re-routed through council to allow more time for public input. The issue comes before councillors Oct. 5 and Oct. 19 for discussion.
Paumier told the crowd the site is a "perfect location" for the clinic.
She dismissed parents' worries about its impact on their children, saying it does not pose any more of a threat than other medical clinics.
"I'm hearing a lot of individuals' concerns about their children and we have no concern about the children because of the type of clinic we're putting in," Paumier said.
"This is not a methadone clinic. It is a pain clinic."
dnolan@thespec.com
905-526-3351