Local Ontario Health teams want to divert mental health crisis calls away from hospitals
Chief of paramedic services says there are few options other than to take people to emergency department
Local Ontario Health Team workers want to divert mental health and addiction crisis calls away from hospital emergency departments and treat people at clinics instead.
The Cambridge-North Dumfries Ontario Health Team (CND OHT) and the Kitchener-Waterloo-Wilmot-Wellesley-Woolwich Ontario Health Team (KW4 OHT) are working together to open two alternative destination clinics.
The clinics will provide access to crisis mental health and addiction supports and services for the community, including those experiencing homelessness, at an alternate destination outside of the emergency department.
John Riches, chief of paramedic services for the region, told regional councillors yesterday there are few options other than to take people to a hospital emergency department.
"The only choice when we respond, is either someone refuses care and transport, which has risk and challenges associated for that person with that lived experience, or we take them to an emergency department which the literature tells us is not the right place for somebody suffering mental health and addictions challenges to be at," he said during a Community Health Services Committee meeting.
Between January and November, paramedics had 1,007 responses to 855 people experiencing lower risk mental health and addictions crises that could have been better served at an alternate destination clinic, according to a report that went before councillors.
Helen Fishburn, CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association Waterloo-Wellington said the alternate clinics will be linked to regional police's IMPACT and crisis call diversion program.
"We're kind of all one team behind the scenes bringing some of these existing programs into how the model will work and kind of maximizing what we have on the ground and then building new on top of that," she said.
'We know this clinic had a positive impact'
In March, the CND OHT ran a similar clinic model as part of an eight week pilot project at Cambridge Memorial Hospital. The clinic served 123 people and prevented 23 visits to the emergency department.
The clinic worked closely with the hospital and paramedics to explore alternative drop off processes, Kristina Eliashevsky, director of CND OHT said.
"Together we identified how this clinic could be leveraged as a safe alternative to the often overcrowded emergency department," she said.
"We know this clinic had a positive impact in our community and providers."
The goal will be for the Cambridge-North Dumfries Ontario Health Team to run a clinic in those communities and for CMHA and Thresholds Homes to run a clinic servicing KW and the townships on behalf of KW4 OHT.
The CND OHT and KW4 OHT are now working to find locations fro the clinics and are applying for funding through the Ontario Health West agency.