'I found myself digging': Advocates decry lack of detail in government's mental health plan
Towards Recovery final evaluation was released Tuesday but leaves many issues unaddressed, they say
Four mental health advocates in Newfoundland and Labrador are decrying a lack of detail in the final evaluation report on the government's mental health plan Towards Recovery and emphasize that more needs to be done to improve provincial services.
Mental health advocate Kristi Allan says the report doesn't contain enough information to back up some of government's achievements it lists.
"I found myself digging, trying to understand what they had accomplished," said Allan.
"My expectation of my government, when they tell me they're going to do something, is that they will follow through and they will show me how they've done it."
Towards Recovery was launched in June 2017 and included 54 recommendations aimed at improving the provincial mental health-care system. Short-, medium- and long-term measures were all labelled substantially complete as of March 2022, according to the Health Department.
A final evaluation report on the action plan was released Tuesday, after the opposition and Allan had called for its publication, emphasizing that it will provide an idea of what's next.
The report was discouraging to Allan, who has been advocating for long-term mental health care for years — an area she said the evaluation barely mentions.
"They say that long-term mental health care needs to be more accessible in the report … but there's no plans there. There's no laid-out plans there that hold the government accountable," she said.
"I think that there was very little information about that type of thing because it's harder to address. It's harder to show numbers for. But if you care about mental health care, if you care about access, it should be there."
Allan wants to see another plan put in place to hold government accountable.
"I can say there was 54 recommendations, I'm going to hold you to this.… If they don't have action plans in place, then we can't do that," she said.
"As someone who is living it every single day, who is struggling right now, in this moment, with my mental health, I want to know, 'What are you doing?'"
Lack of focus on psychology a concern
Tanya Lentz, who has a PhD in clinical neuropsychology and clinical psychology, agrees there is a lack of information in the evaluation report. She was especially critical of the fact that psychology wasn't mentioned at all.
"The lack of mentioning even recruitment of psychologists in the report is a huge concern because it really means that they're not dedicated to doing that. And so, it's a devaluing, I think, of the services that psychologists provide," said Lentz, who says she left her position with Eastern Health due to untenable conditions.
Instead of focusing on financial incentives to keep staff, she said, the workplace environment needs to be improved .
"Honestly, health-care staff as a whole have indicated that they've been unhappy for years through the staff surveys," she said.
"We want to have respectful workplaces, we want to have safe workplaces and we want to feel valued in our profession. And so I think that's a piece that they haven't quite got the handle of."
While Lentz says the government has done a good job in creating more support for people's mental wellness, she wants to see more support for people with a mental illness.
Both the development of a proper assessment process to correctly diagnose people and a reduction of wait times for long-term mental health care are necessary to guarantee that, she said.
"Things like Doorways, which is a walk-in service, which is great when people are having one of those times where they just really need someone to talk to," said Lentz.
"Fantastic for that. Not appropriate for chronic mental illness."
Yet to really be able to evaluate in how far services have improved over the past five years, said Lentz, more data is needed — something she hopes the Health Department will still provide.
Troubled access for minorities
That government transparency regarding its evaluation report is also something Kaiden Dalley would like to see.
"We can't address the gaps without knowing what they are. And then, once that's kind of out in the open, I would like to see kind of steps towards addressing these further gaps," said Dalley.
Dalley has had a lot of experience accessing the mental health care themselves, having used various services in both the Central and Eastern regions, including counselling, inpatient services and day programs.
While progress has been made and services have been added, they said, it's hard to evaluate how much has really been done. One area they believe still needs improvement is the reduction of wait times.
"As many gaps as there are in our services, you can't even begin to address them without addressing the wait times for services as a whole," said Dalley.
"To know that there's other people out there who are also waiting for services and are kind of getting the runaround about the wait, it's frustrating and it's hurtful."
Another area of concern for Dalley, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, is a lack of inclusion within the mental health system. While the report mentions workshops and gender diversity training courses as achievements, they think it is a "performative way of trying to address diversity".
"Having used services recently, it's been trouble accessing services that are actually competent with minority communities. I've accessed several services where it's been a fight to kind of have my identity affirmed, let alone actually address mental health issues that have contributions from my identity," they said.
"They have these training services that some people may take, some people may not, but they don't have any services to match that."
Dalley also criticized the lack of government-run mental health services for the LGBTQ community.
"While being in that community is not a mental illness, being a part of that community definitely contributes to someone's mental health," they said. "So I think that's a huge gap that they're not addressing."
More services needed in Labrador
Not only are services for diverse population groups lacking but also those addressing addictions issues, especially in Labrador, said Keith Fitzpatrick.
Fitzpatrick, a recovering addict who has been living with anxiety and depression, lives in Labrador City.
A six-bed mental health facility set to open in Happy Valley-Goose Bay later this year, he said, isn't enough to address the issues in his region.
"There's no detox up here in the first place. Not in Lab City, not in Wabush, not in Goose Bay," said Fitzpatrick.
"Six beds is a joke. I could fill six beds walking down my street with people who probably need it."
Fitzpatrick said with only two facilities, one in Corner Brook and the other in Harbour Grace, offering a total of fewer than 30 beds, there aren't enough treatment options available in the province.
"The government is doing nothing for addictions. They've got this alcohol plan that they haven't even developed yet. But it doesn't deal with the drug issues in this province, which are massive and toxic," he said.
"A dozen people died in the last year, that I personally know, from overdose or toxic supply. Those are lives that could have been saved if the government did more."
Fitzpatrick wants more transparency about suicide and overdose rates, and more investments into the mental health-care system, so additional facilities can be built.
"Money from the federal government for health-care transfer — start spending it," he said.
"And start spending it outside of metro St. John's, too, because there is a population outside of metro St. John's that need help."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
