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CANADA
Call for mental health reform
Some people with mental illness wish they had cancer
or heart disease instead, because treatment for their condition is so
hard to access, says a Canadian senator responsible for studying the
issue. Liberal Senator Michael Kirby spoke to about 80 health care
workers and community members at Laurentian University Tuesday. He is
the chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, which
released a report on mental health services last month. The report, Out
of the Shadows at Last, recorded people's experiences with mental health
services through public hearings and online questionnaires. About ten
years ago, provinces started closing down mental institutions in favour
of community-based mental health care. But the job wasn't finished, says
Kirby. "What happened was when the decision was made to close
institutions and move people into the community, the government did the
first step but they kind of forgot about the second," he says. "The
result was that all kinds of people were released from mental hospitals
and then they were not provided with a bed in the community. Essentially
what were doing in the 21st century in Canada is we're using the streets
and prisons as the asylums."
The report puts forward 118 specific recommendations
to transform mental health in the country, including the establishment
of a Canadian Mental Health Commission. The commission would make sure
that mental health becomes a priority for the provinces and federal
government, and doesn't go back into the shadows, says Kirby.
Referring
to mental health care services as a "system" is misleading, because the
word implies connection and organization, he says. "There are lots of
pieces that don't connect to anything. How we expect anybody with a
mental illness to navigate through a system as we call it when it's
impossible for people who don't have a mental illness to navigate it is
absolutely beyond me." Implementing the recommendations will cost the
federal government about $500 million, says Kirby. The Senate committee
suggests raising the money by increasing the federal tax on alcohol.
There are many problems with mental health services
for children and youth, he says. In some cases, there are service gaps
that make it hard for older teenagers to get care. "In Nova Scotia, due
to an accident when they moved the age of majority from 18 to 16 for
voting purposes . . . you're only entitled to children's mental health
services until your 16th birthday and you're not entitled to adult
mental health services until your 18th birthday," he says. "There is a
kid who is 17 1/2 who has been occupying an acute-care bed in the
children's hospital in Halifax since his 16th birthday because the
community bed that he needs is only available to adults."
School boards
need to become partners in promoting children's mental health, says
Kirby. Teachers should be trained to identify mental illness so that
children can get appropriate treatment. About 70 percent of adults with
mental illness had the problem as a child, and early intervention makes
a big difference, he says. Teleconferencing technology has great
potential to bring mental health services to people who live in remote
areas without psychiatrists, says Kirby. Virtual counselling sessions
have the almost the same benefit as meeting the psychiatrist in person,
he says.
Heidi Ulrichsen
June 7, 2006
http://www.northernlife.ca/News/LocalNews/2006/06-07-06-mentalhealth.asp?NLStory=06-07-06-mentalhealth
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