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.
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| 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.
