McGuinty receives postcards on the floor of the legislature
March 11, 2011
TORONTO - Dalton McGuinty personally received
more than 600 postcards in the legislature Tuesday signed by
OPSEU members asking him to “walk the talk on mental health.”
The stack of cards was walked across the legislature floor from
the desk of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath. More…
OPSEU had been at the legislature that day to
bring the message that two and a half years of talk about
improving mental health had coincided with two and a half years
of actual cuts to mental health.
In a press conference earlier that morning,
OPSEU President Warren (Smokey) Thomas gave recent examples of a
mental health system in decline.
They include:
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Layoff of 28 child and youth workers at
Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences,
jeopardizing an adolescent residential rehab program that
served young adults from across the province;
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Twenty jobs were recently cut at the
Regional Mental Health Centre in London and St. Thomas, and
more are expected later this year.
-
Children’s Mental Health Ontario expects
they will lose capacity to serve 2,000 children across the
province. They have only received two funding increases
since 1992.
NDP Health Critic France Gelinas expressed her
disappointment in the government’s lack of response to the
recommendations of the all-party select committee on mental
health. Gelinas had been a part of the committee, which issued
its report last August.
“It sounds good to say every door is the right
door,” said Al Donaldson, Chair of OPSEU’s Mental Health
Division. “In the past decade that door has increasingly been
our justice and corrections system. It has also been homeless
shelters and the street.”
Deborah Gordon, Chair of OPSEU’s Child Treatment
Centre, told the media conference “we now have a generation of
children and youth who have not had timely access to treatment -
in other words four out of 10 doors have been close for them.”
Gordon said a 14-bed residential home for girls
is closing in Sarnia is closing at the end of the month, and
other residential facilities are just hanging on.
OPSEU is asking that the government place a
moratorium on any further cuts to mental health and restore
funding to the Child Treatment Sector.
Health Minister Deb Matthews has promised a
10-year plan for mental health will be introduced later this
spring.
OPSEU has received more than 1,000 “walk the
talk” postcards from members this week and will continue
forwarding them on to the Premier’s office.
