Evidence of meeting #14 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was treatment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
That's okay.
I want to make sure I understand. For all of the province of British Columbia there are 14 pediatric beds for those who are suffering from eating disorders?
4:35 p.m.
President, Eating Disorders Association of Canada
Yes.
There's also a residence that's currently run by the Looking Glass in partnership with B.C. and I think there are 14 beds there. Half of it is private and half of it is provincially funded.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Okay, I'm going to come to that in a second. That's very helpful.
So there are 14 publicly funded pediatric beds in B.C. That means if people are from the north of B.C. or from the island, I'm guessing they have to travel. What is the cost for families if you have a young child and they're in long-term care?
4:35 p.m.
President, Eating Disorders Association of Canada
There is a cost to the family. The provincial government helps with the transportation for some of these people from away to attend the day treatment program because we only provide partial hospitalization. They fund them for hotels and to be part of the programming, so it's quite expensive.
As I said, I can get the numbers to you after I talk to the director perhaps, Connie Coniglio, and provide that to you in written form.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Yes, Ms. Cairns, if you could provide how many outpatient clinics. All I'm looking at is publicly funded. How many beds in adult versus pediatric, and residential care, and the average distances that families may be travelling? I'd appreciate that.
Now I'm going to go to Ms. Champagne. I'm wondering if you could answer the same questions for Quebec. We'll start with how many outpatient clinics there are, please.
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Anorexia and bulimia Quebec
For the outpatient clinics, I would need to get back to you because I don't want to give you false information, but the most specialized clinic is the eating disorder clinic in Montreal, which is headed by Dr. Howard Steiger. Then there's a clinic in Quebec City. Those are the two most organized clinics with outpatient services for eating disorders. What we're seeing is more and more people are getting together to try to develop outpatient clinics—
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
I'm going to interrupt. I'm trying to establish case studies. We have one in B.C. and we have one in Quebec, so it's really numbers I'm looking for.
You mentioned there is help in the public health centres, there's help in urban centres, not in the rural areas, and did I understand there are 10 to 12 beds in Quebec that are publicly funded?
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Anorexia and bulimia Quebec
At the Douglas hospital, yes.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
I really hope this is going to appear as case studies in the report, one from British Columbia, one in Quebec. Thank you.
You mentioned that access is not possible for the majority of people. This is devastating to families. They are forced to go to private care.
Can you talk about the costs of private care, please?
4:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Anorexia and bulimia Quebec
I don't have those numbers, unfortunately. I can try to get them to you. But I know that some people have lost their jobs or have refinanced their homes so that their child or loved one could get services in a private setting.
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you so much.
Ms. Cairns, if I can go back to you regarding recommendations for...I think you mentioned you would like to stimulate and support research. What is your recommendation to the committee regarding eating disorders in the country, please?
4:40 p.m.
President, Eating Disorders Association of Canada
In our unique circumstance in Canada, with our publicly funded health care and with the different aspects of what we know about eating disorders, we need to start off knowing who our population is by having a database. I think this has been talked about before, having a database of those who are suffering.
4:40 p.m.
President, Eating Disorders Association of Canada
A national registry and then the people who are providing the services.... But overall we need to know what is going to be most effective. We're so in the clouds that we don't know who we are servicing, who's doing the work, what they are doing, and what is efficacious. I know in a very small—
4:40 p.m.
Liberal
4:40 p.m.
President, Eating Disorders Association of Canada
We absolutely do to coordinate it, to have a vision for Canada to do the best for its population.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Hélène LeBlanc
Thank you very much.
I will now give the floor to Mr. Young, who has five minutes.
February 26th, 2014 / 4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Thank you, Chair.
And thank you, everyone, for coming to share your expertise with us.
My question is for Mr. Art Boese. Art, I want to go on the record saying that we worked together 10 years ago on this very issue. I was your consultant trying to help with governments and actually failed. So I would like to uncover your unique perspective on this issue.
You operated at a financial loss. Maybe that wasn't your intent, but you didn't make money the whole time you had this program in Buffalo. But you had a non-profit set up as well. You had this excellent program. I think it was about $600 a day, which is a fraction of the cost of Remuda Ranch and some others in the U.S. It was an hour to two hours' drive for hundreds of patients who had bulimia and anorexia nervosa, some of whom faced possibly a fatality from the disease. You had the service available and you basically built it and they didn't come. How is that possible?
4:45 p.m.
As an Individual
I'm not sure, because as I mentioned before, it was depending on who was sitting in the seat. In one case they would send patients through and the next time they would say they've got all kinds of facilities in Ontario—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
So we're talking about the OHIP out-of-country group who said yes or no to them getting care out of country?
4:45 p.m.
As an Individual
That's correct, yes.
We started off where we did have a fair number of patients, and then it changed and there were no more. No matter what we did, no matter how.... I asked if it would make a difference if we lowered our price. We talk about prices; you want to know the cost of these things: $1,900 a day at that time was the Remuda Ranch, which is the highest price. Yesterday, I heard it's $1,500 for Avalon Hills.
We lowered ours to $500, but it didn't matter to OHIP whether it was lower or not, what was important is where the patients wanted to go. That's when I went through the MPP in Oakville and I asked if I could get an audit done. So they went out and saw all of the various facilities—
Sorry, did you want to—
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
I have a chance for two more questions, and you have such a great amount of knowledge to share, if you don't mind, I'll get them in. Thank you.
So when an MPP called—you mentioned Peter Kormos—the OHIP out-of-country.... So you're saying this issue was politicized?