Cell no answer for mental-health care

My son was recently admitted to the Dube Centre. Before admission, our experience in the ER was this:

He was very ill, very afraid, anxious, with very disorganized thoughts. The nurses were afraid he might disappear in the business of the ER if he was not supervised. Because there are no designated nurses to watch over the mentally ill, he was placed in “the cell.” The door was locked and a security guard watched him through a oneway window. He was not a danger to himself or anyone else, just very ill. But there he was, a prison cell, bed bolted to the floor, toilet out in the open, beaten, scarred, kicked cement walls and steel door.

For almost two days and a night, my son sobbed, rocked back and forth and begged me to get him out because he said, “I am getting crazier in here.”

I know private funds were made available to renovate a small section of the ER so it would be suitable for the mentally ill to be cared for while they awaited a bed at the Dube. However, the Sask. Party and (Health Minister) Jim Reiter do not want to spend the money to staff it. One of the nurses in the ER said to me, “In this ER, we do mental health very poorly.” A manager told me that mental-health care is the fastest-growing need in Sask., but the most poorly funded.

Priorities. What are they, Mr. Reiter? Is “the cell” your answer?

Lucy Mauerhoff, Saskatoon