Ephesians 2:10 ...join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing." (The Message)

 Mission Update:  Homelessness and Mental Health

 The Mental Health Funding Gap

Source: LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF ONTARIO - ASSEMBLÉE LÉGISLATIVE DE L'ONTARIO
STANDING COMMITTEE ON FINANCE AND ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Wednesday 29 January 2003
(Excerpts in part...)

Two weeks ago in the region of Peel, Michael Wilson revealed some very interesting statistics that have to do with mental health in general and also mental health in the region of Peel. Part of what he said is that the region of Peel is the lowest funded area in the GTA for mental health and addiction services. In Ontario as a whole, it is the lowest funded area. He said that the region of Peel has the lowest ratio of psychiatrists to residents for all Ontario. He said that depression is estimated by the World Health Organization to be the number one source of disability and death in the world by the year 2015- not cancer, not AIDS; mental health and addiction will be the number one source of death and disability. And he reiterated the comments of the Minister of Health, Tony Clement, that this is a problem that's been neglected by all parties and all governments for a good 30 years, and that it's time to correct this historic problem. In conclusion, I'd like to lead you through one portion of the report that came to the region of Peel on January 16, and that is the chart that's in your package. It was a five-page report.

Commissioner David Szwarc of Social Services and Commissioner Peter Graham of Health co-authored this report.

The chart shows very clearly the disparity that is affecting Peel. For alcohol and drug dependency programs, the Ministry of Health spends a per capita average of $12.70 provincially; for Halton-Peel it is only $3.86. For com-munity mental health programs, the Ontario per capita average is $22.50; for Halton-Peel it is only $12.10. We've had people suggest that maybe that's true and maybe we should look at hospitals. So this report looked at hospitals, and what we find is that for general hospitals providing psychiatric services, the Ontario per capita average is $15.86; the central west region, which includes Peel, is not at $15.86, it's $9.22. Outpatient ser-vices: the Ontario per capita average is $5.08, and we're down at $3.31.

So we have spent a lot of time and a lot of energy working with the region of Peel to find evidence of this disparity. You have evidence from the Ministry of Health's task forces on mental health, calling for reform of the mental health services. On top of that, Peel is one of the fastest-growing cities in all of Canada. Brampton and Mississauga-the population of Peel will double between 2001 and 2016. So we're already starting behind where we should be in terms of the Ontario average and we've got a population explosion that eats into our funding every year.

Mr Johnston: I'd like to add that for the past 10 years, since 1992, the base budgets for community health services and addictions within the province of Ontario have been frozen. So what you find is there are more people residing in the province of Ontario, the base funding has been frozen for what will now be 11 years and, with every four people, you have another individual who is going to be affected and needs to have services provided for them within the entire province. Because of the demographics and the growth that's existing in Peel, we're at the point where we can't look after any more individuals who are truly suffering with mental health issues or substance abuse problems. It's going to result in the following. We're going to end up losing staff. I know the Canadian Mental Health Association is going to lose six full-time staff within the next three years unless something is done.

The bottom line is that there has been an injustice that has taken place for 20 years within the region of Peel when it comes to mental health and addiction dollars. We have an opportunity now to do something about that. In my concluding remarks, I'd like to say that you're going to see within the package as well a motion that came forth from the region of Peel with regard to this issue. There is also a letter that was hand-delivered to me yesterday by Mayor Susan Fennell (Brampton) that spoke about the disparities and the fact that something has to be done because more and more people are moving and making the decision to live in the region of Peel, and they're running into these problems.

Another thing Michael didn't mention was that three out of every four individuals who have a mental problem are looked after by caregivers in the home. What happens after time is there becomes perpetual burnout of those individuals, and they too become affected, which is a very, very costly thing because they end up in hospital as well.