‘As fatal as a heart attack can be’: CMHA wants mental health to be Saskatchewan election priority

With more people seeking resources for mental health in Saskatchewan due to COVID-19, community-based organizations say help from the government is needed now more than ever.

Currently, mental health makes up around six per cent of the province’s health budget. This is below the national average of seven per cent and lower than the Mental Health Commission of Canada’s recommendation of nine per cent.

“We want to achieve the nine per cent because the nine per cent from the Mental Health Commission of Canada reflects the newer demand that’s going to be on mental health,” said Dave Nelson, Canadian Mental Health Association senior program consultant.

Since June, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Saskatchewan division said it’s received more than 500 calls from across the province to its wellness support line.

The pressure of the pandemic is making the need for support that much greater, according to experts.  Just last week, Regina’s police chief said suicide attempt calls are through the roof.

Suicide rates in Saskatchewan are already among the highest in the country, according to the CMHA, who said the government needs to focus on education and screening.

“What we need is a continuum that goes from early detection, to early prevention, to a pathway that gets you in a timely way to assistance,” Nelson said.

“More and more people are going for services for anxiety, depression and so on and not necessarily that increase in the more traditional things of schizophrenia, bipolar and so on.”

1:37 Saskatchewan Buffalo Party releases provincial election platform

• Saskatchewan Buffalo Party releases provincial election platform
• Saskatchewan provincial election called for October 26
• Saskatchewan’s election campaign officially underway
• Saskatchewan provincial election campaign officially kicks off Tuesday: Scott Moe
• Election wish list: Economic recovery a top priority for Saskatchewan industries

Previous Video

Next Video

Rebecca Rackow, director of advocacy, research and public policy development at CMHA, said clinical depression and anxiety are two of the top fatalities for mental illness.

“They are as fatal as a heart attack can be,” Rackow said. “Being able to screen and preventative measures are very important.”

In May, the Saskatchewan Health Authority issued an apology to the family of Samwel Uko who was forcibly removed from the Regina General Hospital’s emergency room, after seeking help for mental health twice.

On the first visit, his cousin brought him to the ER, but said he was not allowed in with Uko due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Shortly after Uko’s second ER visit, his body was pulled from Wascana Lake.

“The hospital dropped the ball and it was really bad that he sat there for 45 minutes, crying, ‘I need help, I need help,’ and then at the end they throw him out,” said Uko’s uncle, Justin Nyee.

“This should not have happened. It shouldn’t take someone’s life for them to make a change.”

Even with a nearly $30-million increase for mental health in the 2019-2020 budget, Nelson said community based programs continue to be underfunded.

“Community based programs which keep people out of the expensive clinics and emergency rooms and hospital beds are left to charities like ours,” Nelson said.

“We could do many more upstream things like the screening, like education like support in the community- so it doesn’t have to get to the point that someone is so ill they have to go to emergency.”

“We need to have programs that are educating kids in an appropriate way and all the way up about education around mental health and illness.”

In 2014, the provincial government released Working Together for Change: a 10-Year Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan for Saskatchewan, which looked at the decades-long problem of underfunding.

However, the CMHA said no resources were attached to the plan and the money that has since been put in does not focus on community-based programs.

“Mental health in generally and mental illness in general is in and of the community,” Nelson said.

“It is not primarily a medical kind of thing. Yes you need that when you are very ill and end up in hospital, but generally speaking you are in the community 98 per cent of the time and you need that community support and resources.”

As for Uko, Nelson said it’s been widely acknowledged across the country that emergency rooms are not set up to address mental health needs.

“We’ve sat (in emergency) and seen the turnover for people with physical care needs, two or three times the whole population in there turns over and we are still sitting there with somebody with a mental health issue,” Nelson said.

Now, the CMHA is calling on the federal and provincial government to include generic counselling as part of its services.

“We know with a mental illness… the most effective thing that people have is a good combination of medication and counselling,” Nelson said.

“Medication is usually covered through a whole bunch of different programs… but counselling is not covered. If you are part of the 30 per cent of people who have generally have an Employment and Family Assistance in their employment, you might get four or five sessions. For some people that’s not enough and what about the other 70 per cent.”

In the final days leading up to the election campaign, the Saskatchewan Party government revived a promise to build urgent care centres in Regina and Saskatoon. The goal of these centres is to ease pressure on ERs and by handling mental health and addictions support and non-emergent physical injuries.

Construction on these facilities is scheduled for 2022.

If elected, the NDP said it promises to invest $5 million to hire 50 mental health nurses for schools and an additional $5 million to work with school divisions to reverse cuts and hire child educational psychologists, counsellors, speech-language pathologists and other mental health supports.

Green Party leader Naomi Hunter said they will expand provincial coverage to include all health services including dental, optical and mental health coverage, along with complementary and alternative healing practices.