Mandatory drug testing and treatment, forced psychiatric care
can’t work, addiction and mental health workers say

TORONTO – Ontario Tory plans for mandatory drug testing for people on welfare and mandatory treatment for people with mental illness can’t work, say front-line staff at Ontario’s largest addiction and mental health facility.

"Mike Harris is just exploiting people with addictions and mental illnesses as part of his bid for re-election," said Nancy Pridham, acting president of Local 500 of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. "It’s pretty cynical for him to say that mandatory treatment is a solution when his own government’s cuts – to mental health and addiction services, to health care, and to affordable housing and social assistance – created the crisis in the first place."

Since coming to power in 1995, the Conservative government has cut mental health services from 12 to nine per cent of total health spending. It is also closing five of Ontario’s nine provincial psychiatric hospitals and intends to cut the province’s 5,282 psychiatric beds by 2,000 – a 38 per cent reduction. Addiction funding has stagnated while demand for services has risen steadily.

"The real problem isn’t how to force people into treatment," said Pridham, a psychiatric nursing assistant. "It’s how to provide treatment at all."

"From a clinical perspective, mandatory drug testing and addiction treatment make no sense," said David Robinson, a union spokesperson and an addiction therapist at the CAMH’s Donwood Division.

"People on welfare are no more likely to have drug problems than are provincial cabinet ministers," Robinson said. "Drug tests are expensive, they’re fallible, and they tell you nothing about whether someone has a clinical problem."

And mandatory treatment just doesn’t work, said Robinson. "Research tells us that people have to be ready to make changes for treatment to help. Forced treatment is a waste of resources when there are already major gaps in the treatment system."

People with serious mental illness who have committed criminal offences also face a province-wide shortage of 600 mental health beds in secure facilities, said Pridham.

"At our Queen Street site, we have two wards, with 45 beds, that are sitting empty because the Centre can’t afford to staff them," she said. "Mike Harris wants to force patients to take their medication," said Pridham, "but he doesn’t seem to care whether they have adequate incomes, housing, or access to quality mental health services, whether in the community or in a psychiatric hospital.

"For people with addiction or mental health problems, and the communities they live in, these are the real issues. We hope voters remember this on election day."

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