More people go missing at CAMH
Centre’s stats exceed hospitals, staffer cites volume of patients
A significantly higher number of people are reported missing to police each year by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health compared to 24 other Toronto hospitals, according to data obtained by the Star.
From 2004 to 2014, CAMH-reported a patient missing 2,060 times to Toronto police, a freedom of in- formation request to the police force revealed.
During the same time span, 2,371 missing person incidents were reported to police by all the other hospitals combined, with individual hospitals reporting anywhere from zero to 611 incidents over the course of the decade.
“I think it’s a surprising number,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “Because the patients that we’re talking about are really vulnerable people, it’s a number that needs to be addressed.”
But Dr. Alexander Simpson, CAMH’s chief of forensic psychiatry, said the numbers aren’t “comparing apples to apples.”
“First of all, we have the largest mental health facility by a long shot,” he said. “We look after way more people with mental health problems than any other facility in the city.”
The hospital also faces particular challenges when it comes to patients going missing, he noted. “CAMH, of course, has people here in recovery for quite a long time, and we’re right in the middle of the city,” Simpson said.
“It’s easy to walk out the front door and right onto the TTC.”
The facility made headlines for a potentially dangerous missing patient earlier this week when an Ontario Review Board client absconded on the way to an off-site medical appointment in the Jane St. and Bloor St. W. area on Thursday afternoon.
He was with a CAMH staff member at the time.
After a tip from a community member, police found Thomas Brailsford, 55, in Sunnyside Park on Friday morning, said Const. Victor Kwong.
Police considered Brailsford a “danger to himself and others.” In 2010, he was charged with first-degree murder after his mother was found beheaded in her Scarlett Rd. apartment. He was later found not criminally responsible.
CAMH said the hospital is “reviewing the specifics of what happened in this case to look for potential areas for improving our protocols.”
“We’re also going to consult with CAMH and have a debriefing, if anything can be done better,” Kwong noted.
Brailsford previously went missing once before in 2014 on an unaccompanied community pass and he failed to return, according to Simpson. “He had more freedom at that point,” Simpson said.
The decision for Brailsford to go out with the amount of supervision he had on Thursday seemed appropriate, Simpson said, based on a thorough review of his security level, clinical progress and co-operation.
“We’re also going to consult with CAMH and have a debriefing, if anything can be done better.” CONST. VICTOR KWONG
Within the forensics division of CAMH’s Complex Mental Illness Program — which provides care and services for people like Brailsford who have serious mental illness and have come into contact with the law — Simpson said CAMH was concerned with rates of absconding and made major changes several years ago.
The hospital tightened the division’s processes around assessing risk, followed international best practices and set up new standards and guidelines, he said.
“Anyone who has breached a path, even 15 minutes later we notify the police,” Simpson added.
“That doesn’t mean a rise in the number of AWOLs, but more reporting.”
This led to a 40-per-cent drop in absconding rates within the forensics division after 2012, he said.
But in regards to the overall missing person numbers reported by CAMH to the Toronto police, Mehra said she hopes the hospital “takes steps to better measure and protect patients under their care.”
“The hospital has a duty, absolutely, to protect them — and the public,” she said.