Psychiatrist’s departure leaves patients in limbo
In a city in dire need of such specialists, a psychiatrist is advising hundreds of patients that he’s leaving Windsor and they need to find somebody else to deal with their mental disorders.
“My son is fine now, but if his meds aren’t working, a GP (family doctor) is not going to cut it,” said one mother of a man being treated for psychosis. Visiting his psychiatrist every two to three months has kept him “fairly stable,” as do the regular injections of medication to treat his psychosis, she said.
The mother, a retired nurse, asked that her name, and that of her adult son, not be published. Psychosis is defined as “a severe mental disorder in which thoughts and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.”
But Dr. Olusegun Omoseni, who is moving to Toronto for family reasons, insists he won’t be leaving any of his patients “high and dry.”
He said he is winding down his Windsor practice slowly by continuing to keep office hours for two days a week until the end of September.
“I’m very, very careful with my patients — I’m absolutely dedicated to their care,” Omoseni told the Star.
He said he has contacted local colleagues with their own full psychiatric practices who have “very graciously offered to accommodate patients.”
“He’s a wonderful doctor — it’s a big loss,” said the retired nurse.
She said stability, regular monitoring with feedback and ongoing care are essential for psychosis patients. She said followup is important because one of the biggest challenges for mental-health patients is keeping them on their medication.
“They start feeling better, and then they think they can get off their medication,” she said.
Windsor police have pointed to an increasing number of mental health emergency calls in recent years.
Omoseni’s patients, said the retired nurse, are being advised to find new psychiatrists, but health officials concede Windsor doesn’t have enough of such specialists.
“We are short, we could use many more psychiatrists,” said Dr. Brian Burke, program medical director for brain and behaviour services at Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare. The Star reported a year ago about a “dire shortage” locally, with Windsor having only 17 psychiatrists compared to 120 in London.
“It’s been like that for the past 30 years,” said Burke. There have been some recent retirements and departures, he added, but those have been offset by some recent additions in the local psychiatric field.
One hopeful new development, said Burke, is a psychiatric residency program begun last year that will see two new doctors brought in annually. While still supervised, he said those residents are doctors, and locally they share in-patient and out-patient duties.
Four residents have been brought in since last year, and Burke said the local Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry has added a fifth, Dr. Russlan Abouhassan, as chief resident psychiatrist. Based on past experience in other medical fields, he said a number of them can be expected to set up psychiatric practices in the Windsor area after completion of their five-year programs.
Those about to lose their psychiatrist should first ask their current doctor to refer them to a new one. Barring that, ask their family doctor to assist or go to the Essex County Medical Society’s Doctors Taking Patients webpage at www. ecms.org to find a new doctor.
Calls Wednesday to the Essex County Medical Society and its president were not returned.
The mother of Omoseni’s adult patient said “a lot” of patients suffering psychosis see imaginary things and hear imaginary voices and have difficulty verbalizing what they are experiencing.
“It takes a heckuva long time to get the right mental-health diagnosis and the right medicines,” she said. The disruption of even losing their regular psychiatrist — regardless of whether a new one can be found — has the potential of causing harm, she added.
Omoseni said it’s “imperative” that, once stabilized, the psychiatric patient should return to the family doctor for ongoing monitoring and assessment. He said it should be no different for the mental-health patient than it is for others in need of specialized medical care, whether it’s seeing a cardiologist or an endocrinologist.
Omoseni said he’s trying to make sure all his current patients get attached to existing local programs set up to assist mental-health patients.
“We’re trying to do what we can,” he said, adding patients are being informed that, “If there are any issues, please call me.”