MONTREAL, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Reports emerged Wednesday of a private Canadian drug rehabilitation center north of Montreal abruptly closing last week and leaving 28 patients at an airport.
The incident happened Thursday morning when the Canadian and U.S. patients were assembled and told the Clear Haven Center was closed, The (Montreal) Gazette reported. Each of them was given $100 and driven 65 miles south from the town of Chertsey to Montreal's international airport, patients and their families said.
The center offered residential cognitive therapy for drug and alcohol addicts in a three-story building on 122 acres of land since it opened in 2004, the report said.
Its owner is listed as Dr. Terry Orsten, a dentist in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Reached by the Toronto Star's Quebec bureau, Orsten would only say the center was "going into receivership."
A Toronto woman told the Gazette she had paid the center $5,000 on a credit card for treatment for her son seven days before the closure and was given no warning.
Staff also said they weren't aware of the closure until an hour before the patients were told.
