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Cold Lake putting pressure on province regarding mental health

“We’re not on the verge of a crisis in Cold Lake, but we’re getting there.
mental health
The City of Cold Lake is going to be lobbying the province to do something about the mental health facility situation in the area.

“We’re not on the verge of a crisis in Cold Lake, but we’re getting there.”

Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland said the municipality will be lobbying the government to have something done about the lack of dedicated mental health facilities in the region, after hearing first-hand from residents, RCMP, healthcare professionals, and others about the desperate need for more.

“I do know of many, it’s not just one, several people have come up to me very distressed. I get it from the RCMP presentations, the ambulance calls, and the medical community. We have great staff in Cold Lake that are working on the mental health file in order to provide services, but I think we need to provide these people with more beds and more workers, such as psychologists, to really help the residents instead of shipping them to St. Paul,” he stressed.

Currently, the nearest dedicated mental health facility is in St. Paul, with the second closest in Fort McMurray.

When RCMP are called to assist under the Mental Health Act, and officers believe the person could harm themselves or someone else, they transport the individual to the St. Paul centre.

Currently, the Cold Lake hospital can’t accept overnight mental health patients because they don’t have the security required to do so, Sgt. Ryan Howrish told city council during a presentation in March.

Alberta Health Services’ (AHS) senior communications officer Amy Crofts said in an email, “Services and programming offered at the Cold Lake Healthcare Centre include outpatient addiction and mental health services, treatment and referral for adults, youth and children, along with referral to psychiatry and other specialized services. Information, education and prevention services are also available.”

Over the course of an eight-week pilot project, the Cold Lake detachment transported 11 people to the St. Paul Hospital for mental health services.

In 2018, Cold Lake officers responded to 184 calls relating to mental health.

Bonnyville RCMP S/Sgt. Sarah Parke explained how their detachment responded to 203 mental health calls between June 2018 and 2019.

“Of those 203, there were roughly 32 times when the RCMP transported a client with mental health issues to a medical facility,” Parke said in an email. 

In addition to driving patients to St. Paul, officers “are often used at the hospital to watch over that client if they don’t have sufficient security in place.”

Although Parke couldn’t give a definite number of man hours spent transporting patients, she noted each trip could range anywhere from two hours to a full 10-hour shift. 

It was the time RCMP officers spent taking patients to the centre, and on some occasions waiting for a bed to become available, that raised a red flag for the city.

“Mental health has seen some of the biggest increases in their call times,” Copeland detailed.

He added, “We’re trying to lobby to get a facility, whether it’s at the hospital or inside Cold Lake somewhere, some beds with staffing are required to treat our residents.”

However, it’s not just Cold Lake that is lacking these services.

AHS is separated into five zones, with the north zone covering from as far south as Jasper, all the way to the northern border.

Roughly 492,946 residents are living within the north zone as of 2017, however, according to the March 31, 2018 bi-annual bed survey conducted by AHS, there were only 39 beds dedicated to mental health. Of those, five fall under the community mental health category, which is defined by AHS in their report as “support home programs, Canadian Mental Health Association community beds, and other mental health community beds/spaces,” while the remaining 34 are in psychiatric acute care.

The most comparable AHS zone with a population of 484,308, is central, which covers communities such as Red Deer, Wetaskawin, and Rocky Mountain House. This area has 31 mental health beds in the community mental health space, and 50 in psychiatric acute care.

A representative from Covenant Health confirmed they don’t currently have any beds dedicated to mental health in the north.

“We’ve been saying this for years. For some reason, when you look at healthcare and transportation, these are two files I don’t believe our region is getting its fair share of funding and services. I think the hospital staff do an amazing job in the hospitals in our area, but I think the province could really come in and step it up for funding,” stated Copeland. “When you look at all of the new hospitals being built across the province over the last 10 years, there isn’t one in northeast Alberta. When you look at Vegreville to Lac La Biche to Cold Lake… there’s definitely a lack of capital money coming in to build a new regional hospital or enhance the existing buildings.”

Site manager for the Cold Lake Healthcare Centre, Cathy Garon, said the hospital has the same number of admissions regarding mental health as a designated centre, like the one in St. Paul.

“Cold Lake has as many mental health admissions to our emergency department, equivalent to that of St. Paul, or very close,” she noted. “In the region, if you think about, it’s pretty significant that our hospital in Cold Lake, the Bonnyville hospital, and the St. Paul hospital, has an equal amount of mental health admissions to the emergency departments. Those are all funneled through St. Paul if they’re serious.”

During 2018/19, Croft noted there were 865 visits to the Cold Lake emergency department made by 645 patients regarding primary addiction and mental health concerns. In some cases, patients were accessing emergency services more than once. AHS also recorded 584 new enrolments in community mental health services over the same time frame. 

“AHS continues to monitor the changing needs of the community. We’re always working to increase access to mental health services, addictions services and counselling for inpatients, outpatients and to enhance community-based mental health resources,” stated Croft. 

By having a dedicated space of their own, Copeland said they would not only be cutting back on the amount of time RCMP officers spend transporting patients, but also the number of patients coming through the doors of the St. Paul facility.

“We’re asking the province to have a hard look at increasing the level of funding and getting some secure beds, ideally at the Cold Lake hospital, but it’s very crowded over there. We have to find something for sure,” he outlined. “That would take pressure off of St. Paul. They won’t have Cold Lake and area residents coming in and filling those beds. I think it’s time that the province considers enhancing and expanding the Cold Lake hospital. There’s lots of room to grow on that site, and I think we need a capital investment, and more levels of services over there.”

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