Island Health says it is expanding its support for people struggling with mental illness and addictions by providing more beds, care teams and support services totalling $12.3 million.
The health authority plans to open 28 new supportive recovery beds for substance abusers and 14 new specialized mental-health-care beds across the Island, the Times Colonist has learned.
Health Minister Terry Lake said the 2015 expansion is part of a three-year, $26.6-million plan that started in 2012 to improve mental-health and substance-abuse services.
“They are providing expanded support, beds and enhanced care teams, ensuring that services wrap around the individual, taking them from the hospital to the community and back to their families,” Lake said in a statement.
Only a few locations of the new beds in the north, central and south Island have been decided.
At Glengarry Hospital in Victoria, 14 beds will be added for people with mental-health disorders who also need complex care. Most often, these patients are seniors who are in high-demand, acute-care hospital beds because there is no residential-care bed for them in the community.
In most other cases, Island Health is preparing requests for proposals for bids on the contracts for beds and services.
Cheryl Damstetter, Island Health executive director of mental health, said there is more work to do, but “we have made significant progress.”
The work includes the provision of more beds for youth with mental illness and people who need help withdrawing from drugs. Island Health said it is working to address that over the next couple of years.
Island Health said its budget for dealing with mental-health problems and substance abuse has grown to $167.8 million in 2014-15 from $85.97 million in 2005-06.
New mental-health and substance-abuse services in 2015
South Island
• 14 regional beds at Glengarry Hospital for patients, mostly seniors, with concurrent mental-health disorders coupled with complex-care needs
• A new intensive case-management team based in the community to work with psychiatric emergency services at Royal Jubilee Hospital to better support clients with severe addiction and mental illness after discharge
• Urgent counselling clinic for clients requiring immediate care for mental-health and substance-abuse issues
• Two beds for teenage mothers with mental-health and substance-abuse issues
• One additional bed at Ledger House, which provides residential mental-health services for children and youth
North Island
• Five community withdrawal-management and detox beds in Mount Waddington region, specifically for people of aboriginal descent with concurrent disorders
• Six supportive recovery beds for women in the Comox Valley
• New intensive case-management team to support police and clients with problems involving substance abuse in the North Island, serving Port McNeill, Port Hardy, Alert Bay and surrounding area
• New intensive case-management team to support clients with addictions in the Courtenay-Comox area
Central Island
• Two shelter beds for youth with concurrent mental-health and substance-abuse issues, possibly in Nanaimo
• Six supportive recovery beds for women
• New Assertive Community Treatment team for Cowichan Valley
Source: Island Health
