A petition to convince the B.C. government to establish a psychiatric hospital to serve the northern half of the province continues to gain traction.
Prince George psychiatrist Dr. Barb Kane, head of the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia’s psychiatric ward, says the needs of northern B.C. patients with mental health and substance use issues go far beyond the capacity of existing hospital facilities and mental health agencies.
B.C. is the only province in Canada without a psychiatric hospital and it hasn’t had one since Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam closed in 2012.
Kane has suggested the province should consider the 61-bed former Prince George Youth Custody Centre west of the airport that closed permanently last March as a potential psychiatric hospital site.
“That’s the quickest and probably the cheapest option,” said Kane.
Kane says community resources, such as Northern Health’s mental health and substance use program, are not equipped to handle difficult mental health patients, especially those who become violent.
On Sept. 4, a 34-year-old man with a history of mental health issues attacked two strangers in downtown Vancouver with a knife, leaving one dead and the other with a severed hand. That prompted an outcry from the community which highlighted the danger of not having a mental health hospital.
With no mental hospitals in the province, police are called to bring violent people to a general treatment facility such as the University Hospital of Northern BC, which lacks the capacity and the ability to effectively treat those patients.
“That leads to overcrowding in the hospital and they’re not getting the right care they need,” said Kane. “When you have a psychiatric hospital they have their own emergency response teams. I’m pretty sure Riverview never called police when they had a violent patient because they had systems and they knew how to look after the people when they got violent.
“Community resources are not big enough and they’re not allowed to do what you could do in a psychiatric hospital when someone gets violent. They’re allowed to use some force but you’re not allowed to do that in a community resource, so they have to call the police,” she said.
“I think we want to get people well enough in psychiatric hospitals that they can be managed in community resources, but that’s not really what we’re doing right now.”
Kane went public with her hospital campaign in a story published in The Citizen on Aug. 15 and the word is spreading.
As of Tuesday morning there were 2,516 respondents to Kane’s change.org petition - Develop Psychiatric Hospital for Northern BC Communities - which is backed by 23 community agencies.
Kane has gathered another 400 signatures on a paper petition circulating around the city.
Karen Neal of Prince George cited her reasons for signing the online petition.
“This has been much overdue since Riverview hospital closed, leaving all types of patients with complex needs on neverending wait lists, drugs and homeless with no hope to get better," she wrote in her comments on the petition. "A psychiatric hospital for some that have overdosed so many times, are psychotic, or are schizophrenic, either from drugs or hereditary, need a safe place to land with their daily needs met and hope to get better and be trained. They never should have closed this facility. Our homeless addicts and such are beyond helping themselves and need a push into treatments.”
Melanie Young wrote in her petition comments: “We should be advanced enough as human beings to recognize that many people with serious mental health and/or addiction issues are not able to care for themselves and are highly vulnerable. We need to stop believing they are capable of making good decisions when they are so sick (ie. that they can just choose to get help) and clearly need outside intervention.”
