Island Health has taken a much-needed step by putting $12.3 million into new beds and support for people with mental illness and addictions. The tragic price of mental illness and addictions has been all too visible in recent years. Too many people, including both young adults and seniors, have fallen through the cracks in services.
Since governments deinstitutionalized mental-health patients in the 1980s, those cracks have seemed to get bigger. The promised community services have not been adequate to the demand, leaving patients and their families desperate to find help.
The health authority plans to meet some of that need by opening 28 new beds on the Island for substance abusers and 14 new beds for specialized mental-health care. It might not seem like a lot for the entire Island, but each of those beds will make a difference.
Although the locations of many beds haven鈥檛 been determined, Glengarry Hospital in Victoria is one site. It will get 14 beds to care for people who have both mental illness and complex care needs.
Most of the patients are expected to be seniors who are in acute-care beds because there aren鈥檛 enough residential beds for them.
That expansion will have effects beyond just better care for the seniors. It also frees beds in the already taxed acute-care hospitals. After a week when we heard of Royal Jubilee Hospital patients bedding down in sunrooms, that鈥檚 welcome news.
Other beds on the South Island include two for teenage mothers with mental-health and substance-abuse issues and one at Ledger House for children and youth.
That鈥檚 a step toward helping young people who are badly under-served, but more must be done. Island Health has youth mental-health care on its to-do list for the next few years.
More beds are planned for the north and central Island, including supportive recovery beds for women, detox beds and shelter beds for youth with mental-health and addictions issues.
Not all of the money is going toward beds. Some will fund intensive case-management teams that will focus on specific problems.
In Victoria, one will work with psychiatric emergency services at Royal Jubilee to support patients after they are released; one on the North Island will target substance abuse; others will serve the Courtenay-Comox area and the Cowichan Valley.
The teams address the other half of a huge problem. Finding beds for people in crisis is important, but the bigger, and often-ignored, question is how to help them after they walk out the door. Without effective, continuing support, they face a revolving door of crises.
Lack of support in the community was the major failing of the de-institutionalization campaign. Governments promised continuing help, but it was easy to let that slide because once they were out of sight of a hospital, the mentally ill were out of mind.
Institutions had serious problems, but when it came to dividing up government money, they were hard to ignore. Brick and mortar buildings full of patients and workers loom large in our consciousness. Solitary people, walking our streets in a vain quest for help, are too easily overlooked.
If we are to make serious inroads into the problems of mental health and addictions, we must invest in care beyond the walls of the clinics.
Patients need expert help, but they also need the stability and support of home, friends, family, work, school. They must be connected to the community, not left to find their way alone.
Island Health is making a positive step toward helping them on that difficult journey.
