Waitlisted: The unacceptable standard of mental health care in Canada

While aimlessly scrolling through my Twitter newsfeed at 3:15 in the morning, I saw a story which triggered my "ranting phase", so this will be an "opinion" piece, which I seem to do many of actually.  

The article, entitled "Teen waiting over 18 months for psychiatry appointment", published by CBC Saskatchewan, this in-depth article immediately struck a chord with me. Mainly because I have found myself to be in a similar position two years ago. As I continued to scroll through the article, I found myself becoming more enraged, simply at the fact that the health care system was clearly neglecting the needs of a 15-year old girl, who is in need of mental health counselling. Just like the same was done to me at the time.

An infographic outlining the inefficiency of the Canadian [mental]health care system. To me, these statistics appear to be grossly inflated.

This is an unacceptable standard of mental health care. I can feel this young girl's pain, as I was her. When I was 17, I was admitted to CHEO for suicidal ideations and extreme depression. While I was there they diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Social/Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and OCD (which I had suffered from since I was about 11 years old). 

I spent approximately 2 months and once I was finally released they put me on a waiting list for a team of mental heath professionals at the Royal Ottawa (because I was almost 18, which seemed to be quite a big issue with them in terms of treatment options).

I started school again and continued to wait, and wait. 

Graduation came along, and so did more waiting. 

September, university, a huge transition in one's young life then crept up on me, and yet I still eagerly waited for that phone call. 

Then around November/December, my depression got worse and I slowly felt myself falling back down the rabbit hole again. The isolation, the overwhelming sadness, the thoughts of dying. Everything was crumbing around me and I had no one to help me (except for my parents who were over 4 hours away). During that time I went through a lot, my anxiety spiked due to the new changes and people, a relationship (which didn't go over so well; lying, abuse, staking, ect...), grades dropping like bombs in the sky. I informed the doctor I was seeing at the time about my depression and suicidal/self harm ideations, and they referred me to their psychiatrist. This didn't prove to be any better. All they did was put me on new medications, which made me feel even worse (without even consulting with my family physician about my medical history) and later told me that they had a five visit policy, meaning that you could only receive five hours of counselling throughout the school year. I ended up seeking the help of the crisis counsellor at the university, however all they did was tell me to call the crisis hotline. Now, for someone with severe anxiety issues, talking on the phone is a huge trigger (at least for myself, I cannot speak for others.) It makes the feelings even worse, so at that point it's better off suffering in silence.

In March I had to move back home (and drop out of university) due to health issues and because my family and friends became extremely worried about me due to the fact that I cut off communication and had not been heard from in months (to the point where they were making public pleas for me to come home). At that moment, we all realized that something needed to be done (for good). 

During that time, I was seeing a psychologist with the clinic I went to. However, they abruptly informed me seconds after walking out of a session that I was no longer eligible to receive treatment, due to the fact that my family doctor transferred clinics. At that point my doctor took the initiative to make the call to inform them that I was in crisis again. 

16 months it took to finally receive that phone call. Too long in my opinion. No one should have to wait that long for mental health care. Megan and myself are only a fraction of people suffering through the same ordeal. The rise in suicide rates across Canada just confirms this. 

Mental health is an extremely important issue, just as important as one's own physical health. More important than the millions of dollars the government spends on tearing up and rebuilding (nearly) perfectly functional streets, cutting thousands of public sector jobs and building environmentally harmful pipelines (big priorities indeed.)

Now I don't consider myself a political person, in fact I don't even follow politics, but when it comes to issues like these, it even ruffles my feathers. Even an average citizen like myself can see how wrong this is. 18 months, how long this young girl has suffered with mental health issues. You wouldn't make a patient suffering from a stroke wait that long, or a heart transplant patient wait for a functioning organ essential to sustain their's and human life (oh wait, yes we would...) There's the Canadian health care system for you ladies and gentlemen! It's free, but only if you live long enough to see a doctor...

One of my inspirations for wanting to become a psychologist is because of this very issue. I have lived it and have been a member of this corrupted system. I want to do something to fix this unacceptable standard of health care, especially relating to mental health. By adding one more registered psychologist to a team, it can help dozens of patients in need. Think about that for a minute. Now, if only the federal (and provincial) governments would have this same realization and think about making changes to the system. 

Now, this article focuses specifically on Saskatchewan's issue with wait listing, however I see the same problem in Ontario. In fact, this problem is most likely occurring across the nation. In fact, I know it is. 

People become so desperate or so ill that they get to the point where they lose control. They represent it in many ways, but the most common seems to be suicide (a solemn and pointless act, when putting it into perspective, considering our claim of having "one of the best health care systems in the world") 

Others take it out externally, on the public. Now I make it extremely clear, I am not one of those people who believe that mentally ill individuals are responsible for crimes. The Greyhound bus decapitation and most recently, the Moncton shootings were cases in which the accused called upon "the defence of mental disorder", therefore deeming them "not criminally responsible (NCR)" for their crimes. Now, these are clearly a fraction of these criminal cases, and are not reflective of the link between mental illness and crime as a whole. However upon reflection, perhaps if these individuals were given proper treatment, those crimes could have been avoided. 


When one steps back and looks at the whole picture, it makes you think about the relative simplicity of the potential solution of this issue. What is it? Well, it's a collection of simplistic ideas combined into a prospectively successful aggregation/collective:

- Address the issue, don't deny it
- Increase the number and encourage the enrolment of mental health workers in Canada
- Decrease wait times (resulting from the above point)
- Provide immediate crisis counselling for patients waiting for a permanent psychologist/psychiatrist
- Remove the "10-session policy", because this results in a never-ending circle of crisis
- Enforce stricter procedures regarding crisis intervention and patient care (referring to the recent suicide at the Civic hospital in Ottawa)


These are just some of the ideas I came up with within the span of 30 seconds, so I'm sure the individuals in charge of these issues can come up with even more, and enforce them (if the motivation and attention is brought to the issue) 

News media is just the start, but in a world of technological innovation and impassioned individuals, I am hopeful that we, as a collective society, can do something to solve this issue and draw the government's attention to these matters. Matters which are important to the smooth functioning of a cogent nation as well as to the well-being of its citizens.



You can find the original story here.

My Birthday Volunteering Experience

April 28th, 2012

Okay, so I have only gotten around to writing this now on account of my busy school schedule. But since it’s the weekend I thought it would be a good time to post this. As most of you probably don’t know, my birthday was on the 27th of April and for my birthday I decided that I was going to go on a huge volunteering spree. I know, what a weird thing to do on my birthday right, Well, I‘m kind of different that way and find that since people are helping me celebrate and make this one day special for me, I would do the same for others.

The first event which I took part in was the 30 Hour Famine, which was held at our school. This event was run by the Vice Principal Mrs. Wilcox and my English teacher Ms. Wilcox.

During the event, I felt a little out of place and socially awkward. In fact, for the first 2 hours, I was doing homework (yeah, what a fun and exciting thing to do.) Soon after, some of my friends came over and offered me to play “Taboo” with them. I had no idea what Taboo was or how to play for that matter, but I still joined them. It proved to be very fun and amusing. This continued for about an hour until we decided to go play basketball in the gym for a little while. Soon after, we were informed that dinner was ready, dinner meaning a cup of rice. After all, it was a famine. We made our way to the kitchen, where Ms. Wilcox was standing serving rice to the other students. My friend Kia and I stood patiently until we were informed to come. We both stood there awkwardly while she waited for us to present our cups. Both Kia and I, being the polite people that we are offered the other to go first. “Go ahead Shannon” she said. “No, you go Kia.” I responded. This went on for approximately 10 minutes while the teacher stood there and laughed and said “This is amusing.” Finally after a long debate, I won the debate and forced Kia to go first. This proved to be quite amusing for everyone involved.

Next, we moved on to play some video games. Someone had brought in Guitar Hero. Since I have played that game before, I figured that I would try to play again. After carefully asking if I could play (yes, social awkwardness shows here) I took on the role of guitar. After about 2 hours, a group of us continued to play until we got carpal tunnel. However, a weird and strange occurrence happened. Our English teacher inquired if she could play with us. To be honest I’ve never heard of something like that, but either way we let here join in. She took on the role of vocals, I stayed on Guitar and another peer of mine took on drums. After we readjusted ourselves, we began to play again. At first she looked a little bit awkward and uncomfortable, but then she got into the mood. She actually had a pretty good voice to say the least.

When we finished playing, Josh, another friend of mine had brought in Super Smash Bros. Once again, I have no idea what the game was or how to play. As you can tell I’m not the video game type, but I decided to play anyways. After a while, I kind of got the hang of it and was told “Shannon, you’re too good for this game!” To be honest, I was just hitting random buttons at that point. Suddenly, another guest wanted to join us in our “brawl”. Guess who? Ms. Wilcox! Again, she wanted to join us and play. Since we are all students of hers we said that it was okay. When we started playing again, it was evident that she had played this game before. However, a strange occurrence in which I proceeded to punch her character multiple times and then proceeded to throw her off the cliff changed the mood of the gaming experience. This was followed by the sound of Juniors voice saying “Shannon, I think you just killed Ms. Wilcox.” I then stared over at her, in slight fear that she was going to rage at me. I was met with a long stare proceeded by laughter.

After, this long gaming experience, we were told that it was “lights out”. It was only 11:00pm, but for some people that as late. We then proceeded back to the library where the rest of the students were met up.

-We were told that we were going to participate in a school wide Hide and Seek match. The twist, it was going to be played in the dark. In pitch blackness. No lights, no limitations, just a good old fashioned game of Hide and Seek. We proceeded to begin, and soon after, it turned into quite a match. The hiding places people found, under the stage, in between vending machines, even in garbage cans! It was extremely fun, even though I had to stop after the 5^th round or so. This continued on until 2:00am, where we were told that it was “bedtime”. I believe there is no such thing, but none-the-less I complied. There we all changed and ensued to set up our sleeping stations.

There we sat (Junior, his younger sister Zena, Kia, Josh and I) all sat around Kia’s laptop to watch Adventure Time. This went on for a good 2 hours. By then everyone was exhausted and basically fell into a deep slumber.

In the morning, I proceeded to wake up at 5:00am, like I normally do with the exception of 10 minutes behind. I changed into normal clothing, cleaned up my station and packed up my bags. I got ready and refreshed myself up to prepare for breakfast. When I got to the cafeteria at 6:00am, there were the other students all lined up waiting for pancakes, a sustenance of food in which they had lacked for 30 hours. Of course since I can’t eat pancakes, I waited until the end, where I was met by “Mr.Wilcox” in which he served me a custom made breakfast consisting of steel ground oats, maple syrup, fresh juice and fruit. This made me feel special and welcomed as a vegan.

After breakfast, I was picked up by my mother where I said goodbye to my friends and thank you to the supervisors. We then proceeded to head off to my next volunteering event.

The next event, which was a little bit shorter, was my annual Environment Canada CANWARN training in Nepean.  At this event, we learn about storm spotting techniques and the knowledge behind extreme weather. This event was only about 6 hours long, in which 4 of it was a 124 slide presentation presented by Environment Canada Meteorologist Peter Kimbell. He proceeded to inform us about the facts about the types and severity of weather occurrences. To be honest, it was nothing I have never seen before; I’ve known these facts since I was basically 8 years old. What are the types of clouds? What is a microburst? What is the Fujita scale? All of this was basic common knowledge to me.  Never-the-less, it was fun to recount storm spotting adventures and learn of newer techniques to storm spotting and chasing.

The last event of my volunteer spree was that on April 29, 2012 I attended the National Capital Vegetarian Association’s (NCVA) 4^th annual Veg Fest at the Glebe community center. This was no new occurrence for me, as I have been there numerous times in the past. However, this year was slightly different. This year I was given the honour of volunteering with the NCVA at their booth.

The first event in which I took part in was that I, my sister and another volunteer all dressed up in the NCVA’s mascot costumes. My sister took the carrot costume, I took the mother Earth costume and the other volunteer took the cow costume. We then headed out to Bank Street to spread the world to those who hadn’t heard. At first I was actually scared to do this, as I am not that comfortable with public places. We grabbed our flyers and signs and stood at the corner of Bank and Third.

We continued to pass out flyers to passing onlookers informing them about Veg Fest and directing them towards the action.

A while into this, a man dressed in a black vest and blue shirt walked by us and said “Nice costumes girls. Keep up the good work!” I found this a bit peculiar and strange, but no matter I said “Thank you.” My sister pointed out the fact to me that the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson was the man that passed by us. I was a bit in shock and looked down the street and

Even though we got quite a few stares (and photos taken of us as well), it was an interesting experience that changed my perspective about what volunteering truly was.

After we completed our 2 ½ hour shift outside, we received a break and time to look around at the various other booth’s that were exhibited. I saw many new (and old) booths while I was walking around. I saw some of my favourite booths, including Auntie Loo’s (who were displaying their delicious vegan confections), Café My House (sampling their amazing vegan fare), ZenKitchen (offering up their fine vegan cuisine). And finally a new favourite of mine called Gypsy and Company, featuring their unique apparel, jewelry along with delicious homemade vegan snacks. In addition, I also encountered some new exhibitors which offered up some surprises. The first was Simply Raw Express, a new vegan restaurant opening on May 12^th which specializes in raw cuisine. I sampled some of their dishes such as raw kale salad and was met my pure astonishment and deliciousness which roused my mouth for a good remainder of the event. The next booth was Credible Edibles, offering delicious vegan recipes and fare. Finally, Simply Natural Kosmetics was a booth that contained a wide range of natural vegan friendly cosmetics and beauty products. 

After our break, my sister and I moved onto our next task, which was to manage “NCVA booth 2” in the Guest speakers building. There we had to inform people about the NCVA and fill out membership forms. This occurred over a period of approximately 3 hours. In that period of time we managed to sell 7 memberships and help approximately 40 or so onlookers with questions about veganism and the NCVA.

By the end of the weekend, my feet were hurting, my back was breaking, but the satisfaction of a strong volunteering experience was loaded onto my mind. And over 30 community service hours later, I can say that I am proud to have partaken in this event and I can surely say that I will in fact do this again.

Here is a link to all the booths I have mentioned in this post:

http://www.simplynatural.ca/products-full-page.php

http://www.credible-edibles.ca/home.php

http://gypsyandcompany.ca/

http://www.zenkitchen.ca/

http://auntieloostreats.ca/

http://www.cafemyhouse.com/