"The reality is that we are still doing a miserable job": the NDP concerned about the overcrowding of the Dube Center

is unhappy with the provincial government's attitude towards mental health care after spending more than two months in a hospital. emergency treatment center in Saskatoon.

Speaking to reporters Thursday at a press conference hosted by the Saskatchewan NDP, she has often requested treatment for her bipolar disorder over the past two decades.

At the end of last year, Ms. Middleton spent nearly 10 weeks at the Irene and Leslie Dube Center for Mental Health and Addictions. only in the suite of underground electroconvulsive therapy of the facility.

"I do not believe, when I got out of there, I was in a better state than when I" Middleton said, "adding that she and others in the" pod "ECT were woken up early to free space and were treated differently from other patients.

Legislative Records Show Center Dube, which has 54 adult beds plus 10 Youth beds worked over their capacity for each of the last three years, with an average occupation of 66 last year and 68 the year before.

In May, Deputy Minister of Health Max Hendricks six patients can be accommodated in the Dube Center ECT room in "overcapacity situations, where they exist."

Hendricks added that the Saskatchewan Health Authority ensures that they are "appropriate patients for this region, which means that they are not necessarily the patients the pl sick, but those who are more stable.

NDP health critic Danielle Chartier worries that only Middleton's other options The treatment center was available or transferred to a hospital in Humboldt.

"In fact, mental health is a health care system, period. It must be treated as such. The government is talking about a good game and says that it supports people with mental health problems, but the reality is that we are still doing a lousy job. "

Chartier acknowledged that there was no quick fix. Health Minister Jim Reiter said the province is aiming to increase its current budget by $ 284, an increase of 5% from 2005-04. The provincial government could also redouble its efforts to prevent people from attending acute care beds and create space in the Dubé center by transferring youth mental health care to health care. mental. Jim Pattison Children's Hospital, whose opening is imminent, says Chartier

"The Saskatchewan Health Authority is striving to quickly accommodate new admissions "said the spokesman of the Ministry of Health. Shirley Xie said Thursday in an email that she could not comment on any particular case

Xie said that a new evaluation unit of $ 1.2 million in mental health at the Royal University Hospital is an option for patients when the Dubé Center is Chartier did not agree with the Dube Center – which opened in 2010 at a total cost of about 23 million dollars – these days. Security has also been a problem, especially for nurses.

Earlier this week, the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses said that the health authority could do more to prevent violence in the facility, including the hiring of guards. additional security.
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