Eureka!
One Friday a month I go into West Vancouver for clinical supervision (ie. to hear news about goings on in mental health and addictions in the area, though being a newbie much is lost on me, as well as get advice about difficult counselling scenarios) and today was the day. We usually go for lunch afterwards and today we actually found a hole in the wall Vietnamese Pho restaurant near Kingsway and Fraser that served food that is almost as good as the fare in Ottawa - yeah!
When I was teaching the addictions course at Carleton last summer one of the students who worked in the mental health field in Brockville was often raising the issue of the lack of services available for the people she saw with mental health and addictions issues. Now, I am seeing the same issue, especially since Squamish in many ways is a rural community much like Brockville, and I often think of her!
Despite the Senate document on mental health last year by Senator Michael Kirby (who is also on the Board of Directors for Extendicare, a private company that provides continuing care for older adults … see http://www.healthcoalition.ca/kirby.html) which resulted in national consultations and recommendations, all that work seems to have gone the same route as the Romano-led Royal Commission into Health Care - shelved.
While BC has integrated mental health and addictions services, it is my impression that funds that were formerly directed to addictions services are now being captured under this new umbrella and addictions services are even more marginalized. And the mental health model here seems to be very medical model, driven by DSM diagnosis. The majority of hires in the mental health field have a background in nursing or psychiatric nursing (not that I have anything against either profession but the focus in both sometimes results in pathologizing life and not a broad counselling perspective).
At this point in time I would not hold BC as a model for the provision of mental health and addictions services, suffice to say. Nor do I see the shift to the ‘health authority’ or regionalization of health services as being positive, it seems to consolidate power bases of health care provision in bigger centres and propagate a medical model orientation towards service provision.
I am abit disappointed as I thought mental health and addictions services would be more evolved here given that there is the INSITE, safe injection site in Vancouver. I really hate to say it but even after a decade of Harris/Eves in Ontario, I would say that mental health and addictions services are much more evolved in Ontario, especially concerning data collection. The area around East Hastings is heart-breaking and will likely become worse as people on low incomes are forced out with the on-going development/gentrification of the area. The whole boom town/development mentality here sometimes is a pain. I could go on and probably will at a later date.
However, the weather here so far has been much better than I anticipated. There has been very little rain this year which has resulted in water shortages in Tofino. Heard today on the radio that much of the Fraser River area is experiencing the lowest water levels in the last 50 years and who knows how this is impacting the salmon run. Two websites that focus on salmon (that I haven’t looked at yet) are: www.heartofthefraser.bcit.ca and www.salmonsociety.com
The bald eagles are starting to arrive in Squamish area for the salmon run.
