In Alberta Correctional Services, of course we continue people who are on evidence-based treatment medications after they are arrested. We will also start people on treatment medications.
Unfortunately, Canada's largest correctional facility is in Edmonton, the Edmonton Remand Centre. The average length of stay is about two weeks. What we were finding was that there are a large number of people coming in who were not able to start treatment right away. The wait time to get treatment was as long as four to five months. You can imagine that many people were coming in and were not able to start treatment. Then they were released before they had access to treatment, which is a problem.
The way that it works today is that when a person goes in, they are immediately screened for opioid use disorder. They are able to provide a toxicology screen to support that. We do a video recording and connect that with our virtual opioid dependency team. That person is now able to be assessed and initiated on treatment. I think the average is now 0.9 days from arrival. We've completely resolved the wait-list problem there by using technology.