Sask. slammed over lack of services to north
The provincial auditor’s first report of 2018 slammed the Saskatchewan government for the lack of mental health and addictions treatment in the north.
“Demand for services is increasing, they ’re not keeping up with the demand on a number of different fronts there,” said auditor Judy Ferguson.
Ferguson showed how demand for those services is outpacing the ability of the former Prince Albert Parkland Health Region — now rolled into the provincewide Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) — to supply treatment. She found that over the 2016-17 year, mental health in-patient beds were often full, clients were turned away from detox centres, and there was a high rate of people repeatedly coming to detox, in part because no followup treatment plan was put in place.
“In reality, it’s going to be chipping away at this. The issue is huge, it’s not going to be solved overnight,” she said, adding the province does need to take “concrete steps.”
Overall, wait times to see mental health professionals did not always meet provincial targets.
In 2017, about 80 per cent of child and youth clients with mild and moderate illness severity did not see a psychiatrist within 20 days. The area is also still trying to recruit a child psychiatrist.
Fourteen per cent of files tested for clients accessing mental health outpatient services show they waited longer than the triage rating would suggest.
Occupancy rates for in-patient mental health wards were 84-percent full for adults and 95-per-cent full for youth. She noted 2,500 people, or 44 per cent of the client base, was turned away from detox services.
Running parallel to those issues was an increase of about 2,000 patients a year in the region.
But provincial funding remained relatively static — with $13 million in funding provided year-to-year.
Ferguson noted in her report that long wait times can lead to conditions of patients worsening.
NDP deputy leader Carla Beck said it is time the province takes a look at the adequacy of resources and puts in place a system to meet the community demand, saying there is “simply a lack of resources dealing with that need.”
Despite government MLAs stating how mental health and addictions in Saskatchewan is a priority, neither the Minister of Health (Jim Reiter) nor the Minister of Rural and Remote Health (Greg Ottenbreit) was made available Thursday to address Ferguson’s report.
Instead, the government provided interviews with Brett Enns, executive director of primary care for the integrated northeast, Prince Albert region of the SHA.
He said Ferguson’s recommendations were being reviewed and a new funding agreement between the province and federal government will create “some opportunity to address some of the concerns that were raised.”
Enns admitted the “demand is large” and said it will “always exceed capacity,” but that curbing demand goes beyond just a health care response, noting other areas of government — such as Social Services and Education — need to be involved.
Currently, $284 million is spent on mental health services and supports by the Ministry of Health. Of that, $11.4 million is new funding — about $9.2 million from the federal government and $2.2 million from the province.
Ferguson’s report also looked at the need for Saskatchewan’s four adult-secure correctional centres to offer timely access to medical care for inmates.
“This will help reduce the risk of introducing diseases into the community when inmates are released,” she said in a news release.
To that end, Ferguson called on the province to better train newly hired nurse managers, better monitor which employees have first aid training, keep better medical files for individual inmates as they transfer between facilities, and better respond to inmates complaining about the medical care they are receiving.
Drew Wilby, a spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, said the recommendations weren’t a surprise and many are already being worked on.