Tories promise $39.7M to improve mental-health care in Nova Scotia
Richard Woodbury | CBC News | Posted: May 8, 2017 4:54 PM | Last Updated: May 8, 2017
'Nova Scotians are crying out for more mental health service,' says PC Leader Jamie Baillie
Progressive Conservative Leader Jamie Baillie said mental-health care in Nova Scotia is in a state of crisis and he has the plan to fix it.
On Monday, he unveiled the party's $39.7-million, four-year plan that he said would reduce wait times and improve care.
"Nova Scotians are crying out for more mental-health service," he said.
The party's plan would:
- Allow every student in the province to access mental-health services in their school.
- Establish four crisis-response centres where people having a mental-health crisis would receive treatment rather than being treated at emergency rooms.
- Add more mental-health courts.
- Establish a mental health and wellness institute at a Nova Scotia university where research would be conducted.
- Create a $250 tax rebate for Nova Scotians with PTSD who have a service dog.
Baillie singles out long Cape Breton wait times
Baillie said the plan would improve mental-health care, especially in Cape Breton, where he said the average wait time to access services is 354 days.
"That is a year worth of ... Nova Scotians suffering from depression, from anxiety, from schizophrenia, from a host of mental illnesses where their lives are literally at risk and they wait a year and we lose some of them while they wait," he said.
In July 2015, the PCs called for an inquiry into the province's mental-health system, something which the governing Liberals turned down.
On Monday, Baillie backed away from that call and said the PCs are looking to make the mental-health system better, but a public inquiry isn't part of its plan.
Liberal plan
Last Friday, the Liberals unveiled their plan to address mental health and promised to spend more than $34 million and hire more than 100 mental-health professionals and support staff.
The Liberal plan also includes:
- Hiring mental-health clinicians and support staff to work in schools and the province's more than 70 collaborative care centres across Nova Scotia.
- Piloting four youth health centres in Nova Scotia schools.
- Passing the post-traumatic stress disorder legislation introduced last month.
- Developing an opioid addiction action plan.
The NDP hasn't unveiled its mental health promises.