Creating Ministry of Mental Health won't solve system failures, support expert says

A separate Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions would not necessarily address long wait lists and the dearth of support services available in Ontario, according to the head of the local branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

"From a policy perspective, I certainly agree with the NDP position that there needs to be one united policy," said Helen Fishburn, senior director of services with the CMHA Waterloo Wellington, on hearing about a bill put forward by the NDP on Sept. 11.

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"The question, though, that I would have, is there are thousands of people that are waiting — certainly, in Waterloo Wellington we have over 3,000 people waiting for the formal mental health and addiction system — is there more funding that can be applied? Because that's actually the real problem. Integrating mental health and addictions at a policy level isn't necessarily going to change that."

What we don't have are the resources. That's what we need.- Helen Fishburn

Fishburn said mental health and addiction services receive "far less" funding and focus than services geared towards other illnesses and health conditions. 

"By all means, we are 100 per cent in favour of having more focus, more equity, more funding for mental health and addictions, but do you need to create a new ministry for that? My worry about that, to be honest with you, is that that would actually be a distraction from actually doing the work on the ground."

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If the new ministry became a primary funder of mental health services, and if it were given additional resources - over and above the resources that are allotted to mental health and addictions currently, Fishburn says the ministry could be a good thing. But it's the funding that would be helpful, more than the ministry itself.

"It can't be just moving mental health and addictions out of the Ministry of Health, without any additional resources. That won't solve the problem," she said. "We know exactly what we need and we know exactly how to provide concurrent care for people. What we don't have are the resources. That's what we need."

What would be more helpful than a separate ministry, Fishburn said, would be for all the ministries involved in mental health and addiction services to come together and find "a way to create some funding for people with health issues across the board, and to have equity across those health issues."

She said the government did this with Cancer Care Ontario, and that the same model could be applied to mental health and addictions.