New outreach team targets gaps in health care across Lanark, Leeds and Grenville

Rising overdoses, homelessness and barriers to care in rural eastern Ontario have prompted the launch of a new mobile health initiative aimed at reaching vulnerable residents where they are.

Lanark County Mental Health has introduced the Lanark Integrated Frontline Team (LIFT), a mobile clinic delivering health care, substance use support and social services across Lanark, Leeds and Grenville.

Operating since mid-December, 2025, the LIFT team travels to locations such as encampments, rent-geared-to-income housing, adult supportive housing and other community spaces where people are living and gathering, explains a Thursday, May 21 media release issued jointly by Lanark County Mental Health, Lanark County Paramedic Service, Lanark County and Southeast Public Health.

LIFT is a partnership between the above agencies, and is funded through Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program.

“People in rural communities deserve access to healthcare and support where they are, especially when traditional systems are difficult or impossible to navigate,” said Garry Laws, executive director of Lanark County Mental Health in the release. “LIFT is reaching people who often fall through the cracks — providing care earlier, building trust, and helping prevent health crises before they become emergencies.”

The team includes a social worker, paramedic and nurse practitioner, and focuses on people facing barriers to traditional health care services.

Some services it provides include:

• General healthcare, including assessment, prescriptions, follow-up, and care coordination for people without a primary care provider
• Point-of-care bloodwork and urinalysis for urinary tract infection diagnosis
• Connections to services
• Counselling
• Substance use care
• Harm reduction supplies, including new needles and pipes
• Housing support
• Referrals to withdrawal management
• Overdose awareness training
• Drug test strips

Local data highlights the scale of need across Lanark, Grenville and Leeds, with an average of 11.4 emergency department visits per week related to opioid and drug toxicity over the past year, along with 1.7 hospital admissions weekly.

Emergency department visits have remained consistently elevated from 2018 through 2024, with spikes of up to 23 visits in a single week and as many as five hospital admissions.

“Across Ontario and in our local communities, the unregulated drug supply continues to create urgent and complex health risks,” said David Amot, unregulated substance use health PHN coordinator at Southeast Public Health in the media release. “

He explained that the health unit’s partnership with LIFT is an important collaborative approach for providing responsive, evidence-informed care to people who may not otherwise have access to traditional health and social services.

“By meeting people where they are with low-barrier, judgment-free support, this initiative helps prevent overdoses, reduce harm, and connect people to the care they need, when and where they need it most.”

Since launching on Dec. 15, 2025, the program has recorded 439 visits involving 73 individuals, including 45 nurse practitioner visits provided to 17 clients. Officials say six clients who previously avoided emergency department visits or 911 calls have received care through the program.

Harm reduction supplies distributed include:

• 239 safer consumption supply kits
• 20 naloxone kits
• 155 Xylazine test strips
• 165 fentanyl test strips
• 152 benzodiazepine test strips

Organizers detailed several early examples showing the program’s impact. One client who had been repeatedly calling 911 for prescription refills was connected to ongoing care, reducing calls from five in two-and-a-half months to one in three months, according to the release. Another client received treatment for a serious abdominal infection after initially seeking only harm reduction supplies.

Lanark County warden Richard Kidd noted that programs like LIFT are about building trust and relationships with people.

“By delivering mobile supports directly in communities, we can reduce strain on emergency departments, prevent crisis, and provide earlier care to people facing complex challenges,” Kidd stated.