On Sept. 15, David Eby announced a plan to expand involuntary care for people with mental health issues and substance addictions issues, and to open highly-secure facilities to detain high-risk people under the Mental Health Act.
If re-elected, the NDP plans to set up mental health units in all correctional facilities in BC and will establish regional long-term care and housing programs to treat people suffering mental health/addictions issues, Eby said at the time.
“As a province and as a society, we must do all we can to help ease the pain of mental health illness and end the tragic deaths from the poisoned drug crisis taking place in our communities and homes,” said Prince George Valemount NDP candidate Clay Pountney.
“That includes providing secure, supportive and dignified care for people in BC whose struggles with brain injuries, severe mental illness and addiction require intensive care,” he said.
“We're taking action to keep this group of people safe. That includes creating new secure care facilities across the province, secure care units in correctional facilities, and more mental health beds in hospitals.
Pountney pointed to the new $1.579 billion patient tower planned for University Hospital of Northern British Columbia which will have 83 beds designated for mental health and addictions treatment. Once construction is complete, sometime in 2030, the tower will offer 11 youth psychiatric assessment beds, four brief-intervention beds, 36 adult psychiatric beds and 32 withdrawal management beds.
In mid-August, Prince George psychiatrist Dr. Barb Kane launched a petition to create a psychiatric hospital to serve northern BC communities that now has more than 3,500 signatures.
Kane called for the province to consider the Prince George Youth Custody Centre that was closed last March as the site of a regional psychiatric hospital.
Pountney said he fully supports looking into any option that would expedite the creation of a psychiatric hospital for the region.
“If elected, I’ll work closely with our municipalities and experts to get a secure care facility for people in Prince George,” Pountney said. “As we work to identify a suitable location, all options, including the YCC, should be considered.”
Following Eby’s announcement on forced confinement, BC Conservative leader John Rustad said his party will advocate involuntary care for individuals, youth and adults, who are severely addicted to substances.
The Conservatives also support building low-secure facilities to treat people who pose a risk to themselves or others, as well as crisis response/stabilization units for targeted care for people plagued by severe addictions or mental health crises.
Sheldon Clare, Conservative candidate for Prince George-North Cariboo, said having those facilities would reduce the strain on existing hospital emergency wards where difficult mental patients are now sent and that would lead to better outcomes for those in need.
“It’s pretty apparent that people are losing times for surgeries or getting treatment because mental health and addictions (patients) are taking over surgical facilities and beds that should be allocated to people who have been on waitlists for surgeries and other treatments.
“When we have people who are in need of long-term forensic psychiatric care and there are no facilities for them we’re going to have to look at involuntary treatment for some of them. But it has to be done on an individual case-by-case basis, it can’t be a blanket approach, like the NDP has been doing for everything.”
The provincial Mental Health Act allows the province to detain a patient in a psychiatric facility provided a doctor deems it necessary for that person’s health and safety and to prevent that person from harming members of the public.
The province has earmarked the Surrey Pretrial Centre to serve as the first dedicated mental health/addictions treatment facility, with plans to also open a regional mental health unit at the Alouette Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge.
BC is the only province in BC that lacks a mental health hospital and it’s been that way since 2012, when Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam was permanently closed.
“Shutting down long-term forensic psychiatric care has been a mistake,” said Clare. “There weren’t community supports available for people who were suddenly released. Some have gotten incarcerated, some are out on the streets and some of them are being handfuls for their families. There needs to be a serious look at it to actually solve the problem rather than continue doing the same things over and over again that have been proven failures.”
Clare criticized the government’s safer-supply policy, which provides prescribed alternatives to illicit drugs to try to counter the opioid crisis which kills on average six British Columbians per day.
“The concept of safer supply was never intended to be a blanket approach, it was intended to be targeted at specific individuals in specific situations,” said Clare. “But it’s been turned into a ‘let’s get everybody on drugs program,’ with the government as the biggest drug dealer. That clearly has to stop.
“Decriminalization has taken an important tool away from enforcement officials and they’re just watching it go crazy. You have to start charging the small stuff if you want to stop the big problem.”
The Citizen reached out to other election candidates in the three local ridings and will update this story should they respond.
