Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, on Feb 7th the CBC reported that Alberta psychiatrists are raising the alarm that the ongoing mental health crisis amongst children and youth has evolved into a fullblown mental health emergency. These experts are calling on the provincial government to provide a significant increase in funding for additional child and youth mental healthcare services, as COVID19 mandates, including isolation requirements, have exacerbated an already precarious situation.
Alberta Children's Hospital has seen a 200 percent increase in mental healthrelated emergency room visits in the last ten years, with cases spiking since the pandemic. Mental health professionals in the North deal with the highest rate of suicide in the entire country yet feel there is no avenue to suggest checkins for people suffering from mental health issues. Often patient advocacy leads to these professionals being labelled as troublemakers and feeling their concerns are dismissed.
Recently, there have been numerous reports of NWT youth attempting suicide, as well as talk of suicidal idealization. Some of these children are as young as 10 and 12 years old. Two have recently attempted suicide in Fort Smith and, tragically, a third, a young adult, was successful.
How can we continue to deny that we are in a mental health crisis when any young person sees suicide as their only option? Parents and youth advocates are at a loss.
A constituent reports that they had no idea that their child, who showed no outward signs of depression, communicated to an adult that they were experiencing suicidal thoughts leading to the RCMP contacting the shocked family. Another parent reports that their child is prone to depression, including suicide attempts, and that the family has utilized every government resource available to them with no relief for three years. This compounds the situation by creating mental health issues for siblings and parents that love the child that is suffering.
With Ontario reporting that one in five kids have mental health problems and, in the North, the NWT and Nunavut have the highest suicide rates in Canada, when will the NWT admit to having our own mental health crisis? With incidents likely being much higher than reported, what is HSS doing to save our children?
We have no residential trauma program, no residential treatment program for youth, no child and adolescent unit at Stanton, and the solution seems to be to ship vulnerable people off to another part of the country causing further traumatization. If children are going to get better, they need wraparound support services in place where they are. We must walk this journey with them, not leave them to navigate it alone. Thank you.
Members' statements. Member for Monfwi.
