FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November
23, 2005
Health professionals
protest changes to specialized services for the mentally ill
WINDSOR - Mental health
professionals will picket this morning to protest changes to
the specialized treatment services they provide the
seriously mentally ill.
The Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care plans to transfer 11 Assertive Community
Treatment (ACT) teams in the Southwest from hospital to
community agency control.
Windsor and Essex County have
two ACT teams providing intense and individualized treatment
and rehabilitation to 150 people, mainly schizophrenics,
living in the community.
“Community agencies have no
experience providing this kind of specialized treatment,”
said Dave Erskine, president of OPSEU Local 152,
representing the staff on the ACT teams. “We’re concerned
that the high level of care this high risk population needs
will no longer be available to them.”
OPSEU members will picket to
raise community awareness.
Date: Wednesday,
November 23
Time: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Location: 875 Ouellette Ave., (across from the
Windsor Public Library), Windsor
Assertive Community Treatment
is a model of care in which an integrated team of
professionals provide treatment, rehabilitation and support
services to people with a serious and persistent mental
illness. The services are provided in the community, such as
in the client’s home.
The 11 ACT teams are: London
I, II, and III, Middlesex, Oxford, Waterloo, Elgin I and II,
Chatham-Kent and Essex I and II.
OPSEU represents the mental
health professionals on the ACT teams, including registered
nurses, registered practical nurses, social workers and
occupational, vocational and recreational therapists.
-30-
For more information,
contact:
David Cox, OPSEU Communications, 1-800-268-7376 x 8314
Dave Erskine, president, OPSEU Local 152: (519) 631-8510
ext. 49500; (519) 765-8660
Rob Kinnear, OPSEU Staff representative: (519) 649-7770
