It sounds like good news 鈥� the sa国际传媒 government announced last week it will create a new 105-bed mental-health and addiction-wellness centre on the grounds of the old Riverview psychiatric hospital. But that facility, expected to open in late 2019, will replace the Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction, resulting in a net gain of only 11 beds.
So much more is needed to ease the mental-illness and addictions crisis sa国际传媒 faces, something Premier John Horgan freely admitted as he announced the new facility.
鈥淧eople afflicted by mental illness and addiction need better support and care,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e getting to work to fix the problems and give people the help they need.鈥�
Riverview was once what was known as an insane asylum, a term that conjures dark and frightening images, and for good reason. In Victorian times, people with obvious mental illnesses were warehoused in such facilities with little or no treatment, or treatment that would be regarded as torture today. People put in these grim places often couldn鈥檛 get out.
More enlightened views evolved, and community-based psychiatric care came to the fore. Many mental hospitals were phased out. The last of Riverview鈥檚 patients, which once numbered almost 5,000, were moved out in 2012.
But the promise of community-based care hasn鈥檛 been fulfilled because the necessary resources were not put into place. Too many suffering people are forced to fend for themselves when they don鈥檛 have the capability to do so. Too many people wander the streets or are caught in a revolving-door system that tries to cope with urgent situations but can do little to resolve long-term problems.
That鈥檚 not to blame the closing of Riverview for all of the homelessness and addictions on our streets, but it certainly hasn鈥檛 helped. The community-care approach sounds good in theory, but in practice, the problems have been dumped on police departments, hospital emergency departments, local governments and community agencies that constantly scramble for funding.
If hundreds of people were wandering our streets or left otherwise destitute because treatment was not available for brain cancer, diabetes or other physical ailments, there would be an outcry and a rush to correct the situation. Yet included in our homeless population are many victims of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other forms of mental illness who lack the resources needed to help them cope or survive.
Yes, treatment, housing and other supports are expensive, but we are already paying the price 鈥� in police-department and emergency-room costs, not to mention the immense human cost of lives lost to the growing number of opioid overdoses.
Riverview and other such institutions were closed with the promise of a more humane system. We鈥檙e a long way from fulfilling that promise.
