Calls grow for more, expanded mental health care in B.C. in wake of Vancouver festival tragedy
'The system isn't great. The safety net is really full of holes'
Shirley Chan's daughter started showing signs of mental illness as a teen — but she thought it was just bad behaviour, something that would correct itself naturally.
"She'd been such a wonderful child up until then," Chan said. "The illness was something that really puzzled us. And we thought, OK, well, she'll be fine, we just need to get through this bad patch."
But that wasn't the case. It was the beginning of a long journey of supporting her daughter with severe mental health challenges and addiction.
Now, Chan is one of the many advocates pushing for more, and expanded, mental health care across the province.
"If your family member, a loved one, is ill, then you know the system isn't great. The safety net is really full of holes."
Those calls are growing louder in the wake of the alleged attack at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver over the weekend that left 11 people dead and many more injured.
This week, public safety critic Elenore Sturko began calling for legislation to bolster the Mental Health Act, and for a review of the mental health-care system as a whole.
Kai-Ji Adam Lo has been charged with eight counts of second-degree murder in Saturday's tragedy. Police and health-care officials have confirmed he had a history of mental illness, and was under the care of a mental health team in accordance with the Mental Health Act.
"The bottom line here is that there's been a gap in the kind of care that [mental health patients] can receive, and I think improvements need to be made," Sturko said.
Education, treatment beds
Jonny Morris, CEO for the B.C. division of the Canadian Mental Health Association, said the need for more mental health support and treatment options has been ongoing, and it's urgent.
"We are in a time where there's a really acute need for mental health services and supports," he said. "I think 'crisis' is a word that's been used for a long, long time when it comes to the mental health system."
Some of the major gaps Chan has noticed are a shortage of hospital beds dedicated to mental health patients and a lack of treatment facilities like Red Fish Healing Centre, which she said her daughter had great success with.
She said she also thinks the province needs more dedicated teams that can offer wraparound services to individuals.
But really, the main thing that was missing when her daughter started struggling, Chan said, was any kind of education on what was happening. She said she didn't realize her daughter was mentally unwell to begin with, and if she had known, it might have started her family off on a different path.
"Early intervention, really early intervention, is what we needed," she said.
B.C. Psychiatric Association president Dr. Nick Ainsworth agrees, and said when he sees someone reeling from mental illness in the emergency department, all he can think about is how timely access to care when their struggle began would have helped.
"I definitely wholeheartedly agree that if something can come out of this … we really need to improve and increase the availability of mental health resources throughout the spectrum of care and throughout the spectrum of severity in this province," he told CBC's On The Coast host Gloria Macarenko.
He said there also aren't enough mental health-care professionals employed in B.C. to meet the demand for care.
Morris said more psychologists and psychiatrists would be key to having a more robust mental health-care system.
CBC News has contacted the Ministry of Health for more information about the total number of mental health-care beds and mental health support staff throughout the province.
'Full system expansion'
Premier David Eby said earlier this week that there is a "full system expansion" underway, pointing specifically to recently announced beds for incarcerated individuals who have mental illness and addiction.
"Across the spectrum, regardless of why you're struggling, we are opening beds and we're also expanding care for people that don't require that intensive level of mental health," he said.
Morris acknowledged that there have been many investments and changes to mental health care over the years, but said there is more to be done.
"There is acute need still, there are some glimmers of hope where there are resources and some successes, but there are also lots and lots of people who are desperately wanting care, seeking care voluntarily in the province, and that care, depending on where you live, can be hard to come by."
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With files from Renee Lukacs and On The Coast