Petition for Universal Mental Health & Substance Use Health

Flying to Montreal days after the mandatory masking on planes came into effect in 2020. My friend broke out the sewing machine to make one for me since there weren’t any masks for sale in our small town. I was one of nine people on the flight from Vancouver to Montreal.

Over the last few years, there have been important shifts in how we talk about mental health. Even before the pandemic, it had become less taboo for people to talk about how they experience life’s challenges. Over the course of the two years, while we were isolated from one another, we collectively experienced uncertainty. We engaged with mortality, we experienced loneliness. We felt trapped, stagnant. Everyone faced challenges specific to the precarities of their own lives, but we also shared in the experience of abrupt changes and threats to life as we knew it.

The pandemic shone a light on what health care workers have long known: Our health care system is fragile. Emergency rooms were beyond capacity long before COVID hit. Living conditions in long term care centres in Quebec have been intermittently raised in the news for years, notably when the 93 year old mother of Gilles Duceppe (former leader of the Bloc Québécois) died of hypothermia after being locked outdoors after a fire alarm went off in her private seniors residence (Laframboise, 2020). That the mother of such a well-respected politician could die in such a way foreshadowed what was to come when COVID hit the long-term care centres. Our public health care system should ensure that no one dies in such conditions.

It should also ensure that those who suffer from health issues, be they physical or mental, have access to treatment.

Under the Canada Health Act, only mental health services provided in a hospital are covered under provincial health insurance (CMHA, 2022). This causes a number of problems. First, hospital psychiatric units have limited resources that are stretched beyond their limits. These units often attend to the acute needs of people with complex psychiatric illness, but they rely on family and community partners to collaborate for long-term support. Meanwhile, ER overflows with people seeking emergency support for suicide risk. They may sit in ER for days before being discharged. They may or may not be referred to mental health resources in the community.

They may or may not have needed to be in ER had there been access to therapeutic support before the crisis moment.

Unfortunately, on a systemic and structural level, we don’t treat mental health issues like we do physical health. A lot of lip service is paid to its importance, but still little is done to improve access to resources. We place responsibility upon those struggling to take care of themselves, offering them little concrete support. It would be absurd to encourage people with broken arms to apply “self care” measures from social media, but this is how we continue to treat mental health.

Some of us are fortunate enough to access private psychotherapy, but we are a privileged few. We also shouldn't have to. We are indirectly paying for our mental health, be it through substance use, physical illness or loss of productivity. We are also indirectly paying for the mental health crisis through what is known as the revolving door between the emergency room, the streets and prisons.

We have normalized receiving patchwork care in an overstressed system. We have normalized burnout in health professionals. For two years, we kept a distance from friends and family to protect one another, and to protect our fragile system. The best way of supporting the heroes that we've praised, the essential workers, is to support them in their fight for a system that has the capacity to care for us.

The Canadian Mental Health Association is asking for the public's support in pushing the federal government to 1) Create a permanent Mental Health and Substance Use transfer to fund mental health care; 2) Create a Canada Universal Mental Health and Substance Act to ensure equitable access to treatment across Canada; 3) Fully decriminalize simple possession of illegal substances and invest in harm-reduction, treatment and recovery services.

Historically, our social programs have been born out of times of crisis (Guest, 1995). Let this be no different.

Click here for the petition: https://www.actformentalhealth.ca/

References:

Canadian Mental Health Association (2022). ACT for Mental Health. Federal Plan for Universal Mental Health and Substance Use.

Guest, D. (1995). Histoire de la sécurité sociale au Canada. Montréal, QC: Éditions Boréal.

https://globalnews.ca/news/6435607/gilles-duceppe-mother-death-lawsuit-anniversary/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/coroner-report-long-term-care-deaths-1.6454935