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Mental health statistics tell the story: One in every five Ontarians will suffer from a mental illness during their lifetime, and one in 10 teenagers contemplates suicide. In Ontario, 12,000 children are on the waiting list for mental health. These statistics show why the province is wrong to take money out of mental health care. What do we want for our children? What do we want for our community? How can we work together to make positive change? These were the questions that caregivers, survivors and family members from across Ontario discussed at a mental health conference in Toronto Nov. 3-4, sponsored by OPSEU and the Ontario Health Coalition. “Building Links for Better Mental Health” was opened by OPSEU President Leah Casselman and Natalie Mehra, coordinator of the Ontario Health Coalition. Casselman urged the 200 participants, who represented a broad range of mental health caregivers and clients, to pool their resources and come up with solutions to the cuts in services in this sector of healthcare. Susan Hess, president of Parents for Children’s Mental Health, read stories from children lost due to the failure of our system to recognize their need and help them: “I hate my life. I wish I was dead. I am stupid. I want to kill myself. I never do anything right.” Hess said the children’s mental health system suffers from a lack of funding for core services and research, and gets little attention despite the alarming statistics. Diana Capponi, client employment co-ordinator for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said mental health is still stigmatized. “People consider mental health sufferers to be poor people. They are shunned, picked on and laughed at,” she said. Mentally ill people in jail “Are the jails now becoming our new psychiatric facilities in Ontario?” asked Dr. Kathleen Hartford of the Lawson Health Research Institute at the University of Western Ontario. She noted that one-quarter of the $4 million London, Ont. police budget is spent on dealing with mentally ill people. Barry Scanlon, chair of the OPSEU Corrections Division, said correctional officers are not trained to deal with psychiatric issues. Before staff cuts to the correctional system, a special needs unit existed and they would be informed if someone is mentally ill and follow this through so the person did not sit in jail for six months awaiting trial. There was a discharge planning group that did follow-up, but it has been cut. Good intentions, poor delivery “Mental Health is marked by good intentions, but bad delivery,” said Rob Moore, acting director of the Mental Health & Addiction branch of the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. He said coordination among agencies and service providers need to be improved, and promised to take the concerns of the participants’ to the ministry for follow up. “Psychiatry should be taken out of the hands of the people running the general hospitals,” said Dr. Harold Merskey, professor emeritus at the University of Western Ontario. “The care of the severely mentally ill requires that funds from the government to be managed by an independent board, whether the patients are located within a general hospital, in adjoining wards or in separate buildings.” However, the McGuinty government is continuing the previous Tory government’s plan to divest provincial psychiatric hospitals from the Ministry of Health into public hospitals. Lobbying effort needed OPSEU First Vice-President/Treasurer Warren (Smokey) Thomas, who works at a psychiatric hospital in Kingston, called on participants to involve their communities in a lobby effort to get mental health back on the government agenda. Since 1993, core funding for children’s mental health services has decreased by eight per cent, while the number of children needing treatment has increased by 176 per cent. Every dollar taken out of mental health should be put back into the community. The 2004 Ontario budget promised $25 million “new” dollars for children’s mental health. “It is essential that this money be invested across the continuum of mental health services and not in creating new services that duplicate the existing ones,” Thomas said. Participants at the conference vowed to follow up with round table discussions, pamphlets and flyers, and lobbying in communities to raise awareness of the plight of mental health in Ontario.
Natalie Mehra, Coordinator of The Ontario Health Coalition and Leah Casselman, President of OPSEU declaring the conference open
Panelists presenting their ideas and experiences at the conference
Susan Hess, President of Parents for Children's Mental Health displaying the Quilt of Honour
OPSEU's First Vice President and Treasurer, Warren (Smokey) Thomas addressing the participants
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