Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is Canadian Mental Health Week and I’d like to offer a few comments on the state of mental health care and wellness.
One of the keys to good mental health is a balanced outlook, so first let’s dwell on the positive. Community commitment and caring are the common threads. We have a long history of the NWT Helpline, where compassionate people give their time and attention to help people get through the hard times. We have the recent partnership of BHP and the Union of Northern Workers putting up $10,000 each for the staging of support groups. The Women in Progress Program jointly staged by the Centre for Northern Families and the Canadian Mental Health Association local chapter help women learn skills for healthy choices. Help from the Canada Post Foundation for Mental Health has provided counselling services. Mental Health Week gives us an opportunity to recognize these achievements and I offer my kudos to these people.
Still, the needs are great. There is still no resident psychiatrist practising in the NWT. Although we are fortunate now, having our Yellowknife physicians filled by longer-term locums, access to the care of psychiatrists and psychologists is virtually non-existent in our communities. Twice since the fall we’ve had two major ground searches in Yellowknife looking for people on release from the Stanton mental health unit and missing in the community. One of these unfortunate people has still not been found. When people are released, where can they go? The city’s new day program, crisis housing and the Centre for Northern Families are where many outpatients end up, but we are relying upon the services of overstretched, non-government organization programs that lack the resources and especially the skilled staff to deal with mental health care. When things go wrong, I am told that there are often difficulties in getting outpatients readmitted; leaving these people parked without care in places already stretched to the max.
While there’s a lot of commitment and some progress, we have to admit that mental health care is often considered an add-on or “nice to,” rather than a central element of care. I will be asking the Minister of Health on the place of mental health care in our total approach to healthy citizens. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.
