Long waits driving people to suicide: N.S. Tories

The Progressive Conservatives committed $40 million to mental health services in Nova Scotia on Monday, saying the Liberals have failed to address a deepening crisis that is seeing people commit suicide as they wait up to a year to get emergency psychiatric care.

Leader Jamie Baillie cited the case of a Cape Breton woman whose son was placed on a waiting list after seeking help at an emergency room because he was experiencing a mental health crisis.

He committed suicide while he waited, Baillie said.

“The wait time for mental health services is 354 days,” Baillie said. “Their lives are literally at risk and they wait a year and we lose some of them while they wait. Well, no more.”

Laurel Walker, a mental health advocate who attended the news conference with Baillie, said she went to an emergency room with a suicidal client several years ago and was told by a psychiatric nurse that she would have to look into community resources to get care.

The woman was told she wouldn’t be admitted at the hospital, Walker said. A short time later, she said, the woman killed herself.

“I wish I could say this was just a rare occurrence — going to seek help and not being connected to it, but in our province from Yarmouth to Sydney this is happening every day,” she said.

Baillie said the $39.7 million over four years would be spent on in-school mental health services, emergency centres for people suffering from mental health crises, increasing the number of mental health courts and creating a mental health research institute. Baillie said he would also create a $250 tax rebate for people who rely on a psychiatric service dog.