Sask. needs to beef up mental health funding

Crisis intervention work must be seen as essential, Joanne Schenn writes.

I have worked in the field of mental health counselling and/or management for much of my professional life, including a health district, a health region and now a holistic primary care cooperative. Change and progress is occurring rapidly in many areas of health care in general, however, attention to mental health services seems to have lagged behind until recently.

Tragedies such as the La Loche shooting, an increase in suicide rates, the crisis with substance use deaths from fentanyl and crystal meth, and the impact of trauma with the Humboldt bus crash have put the need for mental health services in the public eye.

My family and I have been personally hit with two suicides and have experienced a range of mental illnesses over the years, as I’m sure most other families have as well. Mental illness is as common as physical illness. So why do we not have the same funding for mental health?

I highly commend the work of the Bell Let’s Talk initiative, the work of the Canadian Mental Health Association and various other projects designed to help reduce the stigma of mental illness so people feel more comfortable talking about mental health and asking for help. The message appears to be getting through as our services and other mental health services such as Saskatoon Crisis Intervention Services have seen huge increases in demand.

This is all good news, except for the fact that funding for mental health programs has not kept up, even despite clear recommendations to the government funders in the 2001 Fyke Report and the 2014 Sask. Mental Health and Addictions Report.

In fact, Saskatchewan now lags behind all other provinces in mental health funding. Wait lists abound both at our primary care clinic, the regional health authority and other community-based organizations that work in the area of mental health and addictions. People who identify that they may have a mental illness are asking for help and we are now essentially turning them away by putting them on lengthy wait lists or referring them to private counsellors they can’t afford. The most effective mental health interventions are often initiated when motivation is high and people initially ask for help. We are missing that opportunity with so many people when they must wait for the help they are requesting. The motivation slowly disappears, people give up and some become desperate. Common depression moves toward desperation, hopelessness and thoughts of suicide. No wonder suicide rates are high.

My belief is that it is ethically and morally wrong to set people up with expectations that there is a lifeline available for them and then pull it away when they finally try to grasp hold. People living with mental illness need individual attention, and that can only be achieved through providing the resources of crisis workers, counsellors, social workers, mental health therapists and community mental health nurses who can form therapeutic helping relationships and provide expertise to help people grab hold of that lifeline.

Testing and diagnosis by psychologists has its role, as does the diagnostics and medication provided by psychiatry. These resources are underfunded as well, but mostly we hear from patients that they need a well-trained human being to meet with them regularly to walk with them on their journey toward mental health. It is time that crisis intervention work is seen an essential emergency service and funded in the same way as the police and fire services. Mental health focused services and agencies should not have to resort to funding through bake sales and raffles, but this is where we seem to be heading. We must remember that, as the World Health Organization stated, “There is no health without mental health.” Joanne Schenn is a social worker and director of Counselling and Community Services at the Saskatoon Community Clinic.