Existing services in need of funds, too

Re A $100-million ‘injection of hope’ for mental health, Jan. 12 Although it is exciting to see that this money will be spent on funding for “really, really leading-edge ideas,” it is frustrating that more is not spent on providing services that are known to be effective based on our current knowledge.

In family medicine, we see patients daily who come in distress requesting access to therapy and are disappointed to find out that this is rarely possible unless they can pay for it privately.

People are falsely lured into asking for help where often none exists, which only then compounds their feelings of hopelessness. Patients are paralyzed with social anxiety and OCD and are not able to access cognitive behavioural therapy. Patients with personality disorders can’t access dialectical behaviour therapy. Addiction services are not readily available without private funds.

Wait lists for any covered version of these therapies are so long that patients often lose their motivation or decline profoundly while waiting.

When patients bravely ask for help, it would be refreshing if that help existed — while waiting for the cutting-edge research to yield results. Leigh Grant, family doctor, Toronto Re We need hands-on care, not research:

Letters, Jan. 14 Thank you to Dr. Blitzer, who echoed my sentiments perfectly.

I would add that not every mental health issue needs psychiatric care. In the case of children, many of them could be and are handled extremely well by children’s mental health centres. If only these centres were properly funded, so much more could be done.

In children’s mental health, our focus is to make a better world, one child at a time. If you really want to transform our society, give money to replenish the children’s mental health system, which sadly is currently in a state of decline. The children’s mental health system desperately needs money to offset government underfunding. If this continues our society is going to pay the price. Dr. Robin Alter, child psychologist, Toronto