Evidence of meeting #127 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Manitoba Nurses Union
Yes, absolutely. We're just prepping for that as well, because we are going from six emergency departments in the city down to three.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
Yes. Thank you.
We've talked about the root causes of a lot of this. Mr. Favel, I really liked what you said about poverty. I think it was Gandhi who said that poverty is actually very expensive, and that's exactly true. It leads to all these things that actually cost our social safety net and our medical care systems a lot of money. We're seeing social problems where the banks no longer have branches in poorer neighbourhoods because everyone has to go to payday loans and get that haircut of 3% off their cheques. There are these sorts of things, and I know we need a lot of economic policies that are going to help with that.
In regard to mental health, in my experience, a number of people with addiction issues have mental health issues. I had a number of patients with drug issues. When you dug into it, you saw that their mental health symptoms actually predated the drug use. I've talked to teenagers who were smoking a lot of pot. When you asked them why they liked smoking it, they'd say they started smoking it because “the voices were saying really scary things” to them. They didn't tell anyone about the voices. They just started smoking the pot, and that's what got noticed.
We have a substantial investment in mental health. Again, the provinces have been rather resistant to that. They want to decide what they do with the health care money. They don't like being dictated to, but do you think it is a good idea that we're saying that this large portion of what we're giving in health care transfers is dedicated to mental health services?
I'll ask each of you to answer in turn.
Executive Director, Bear Clan Patrol Inc.
We absolutely need those mental health supports. Again, we lost two of our volunteers this summer because the mental health supports were not there for them. We took 22 of our youth and trained them on how to use naloxone. The thinking behind that was that, if we changed the way they're thinking about these things and had them thinking more critically and clinically about the drugs they're using, they would be less apt to use them. For the most part it worked, but we still lost one that way this summer. We lost a second one in August as well. The mental health supports need to be there so these people have a resource to reach out to, so they can try to get healthy and stay healthy.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
I'm very sorry to hear about your loss. I know it's tragic to lose co-workers and friends like that.
December 4th, 2018 / 10:20 a.m.
Executive Director, Bear Clan Patrol Inc.
A boy turned 18 on June 25 and graduated from our youth patrols to our adult patrols, and then we buried him on August 9.
Liberal
Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB
I'm so sorry. That's horrible.
Ms. Jackson, what's your response to mental health?
President, Manitoba Nurses Union
I think there's overwhelming evidence that addictions and mental health absolutely dovetail. There's a lot of research, and they absolutely dovetail. You're right. When Sarah talks about pain, a lot of addictions and a lot of drug use have to do with emotional and psychological pain. That's the pain we talk about. We're seeing that even younger. We're seeing kids in grade school have anxieties that we wouldn't ever have imagined. Society has changed and the way we're raising our kids has changed. I think we need to start mental health interventions much earlier. I think we need to start it in schools.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Marilyn Gladu
All right. That's your time.
Now we're going to a combination of Mr. Webber and Mr. Lobb for six minutes.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Absolutely, that's what I heard from Dr. Gabor Maté as well: Mental health is the issue here. There are underlying issues that get people into drugs. I read his book as well. I recommend you read his book. He talks about his patients, and yes, they all had underlying issues way before they even started using drugs, so we need to deal with mental health.
I want to go back to the emergency room, Darlene, and how unsafe it is for nurses, doctors and others.
Is there a policy with respect to restraint? For instance, if there's somebody who comes in high on meth, would you not automatically restrain them and keep them restrained to keep you guys safe? What's the policy there?
President, Manitoba Nurses Union
If the patient is out of control or displaying violent behaviour, they can be restrained.
I've just come from the front lines. I worked in emergency departments. I did hear that at the Health Sciences Centre, it took 15 people to restrain a female patient who was on meth—15 people.
Conservative
President, Manitoba Nurses Union
You have to actually get them to the bed and hold them in that position.
The issue is that these patients are very volatile. You can't anticipate a change in their behaviour. For example, a clerk went in to stock a room with a patient on meth who was being very co-operative. The next thing was that this patient was actually on the clerk choking him and staff are pulling them off. You can't anticipate the behaviour. That's part of it. It's very unpredictable.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
If it's unpredictable, anybody who is in for meth then should be restrained, wouldn't you think? Even though they are calm at one point in time, they could turn on you at any minute.
Executive Director, Bear Clan Patrol Inc.
With the attendant mental health issues, I think it's really dangerous to try to restrain everybody who comes into the hospital. That might set them off. That's one of the things you have to be very careful about. The tone you use when engaging with these people is important, because they need to be handled differently.
Conservative
Executive Director, Bear Clan Patrol Inc.
I haven't been inside the clinics myself but we've been sending many people over there. They're getting some support from that and we're able to build on that.
Executive Director, Overdose Prevention Society
We see, I would say, 200 meth users a day. Having them in the environment of the overdose prevention site and identifying those things and calmly talking to those folks, we avoid any of those kinds of issues. It's mostly just by engaging with them and having community members talk to them to help them refocus. I think taking them into a hospital environment where it's totally foreign, with police and all of that, is going to escalate the situation.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
Do you have a way to track the lifespan of somebody who comes into your office the first time? If they come in on a Monday and they live for two years, 10 years, or a month, is there a way you can track that or is it impossible?
Executive Director, Overdose Prevention Society
We haven't tracked that. I can certainly say that a lot of people I've known over the years, especially in the past couple of years, have passed away. It's completely awful for families, and it's completely avoidable by getting them medical and mental health care, and the treatment that they need and safe alternatives to the drugs they're using. I can't stress it enough that there is a solution that we're just not doing. Everybody knows. The police, the ambulance and everybody on the front lines is pushing for it. As long as we avoid that, we're going to continue on in the crisis and people are going to die.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
The other thing I can't help but notice from my time with my place downtown here is that it seemed to me.... Everybody talked about housing and the need for safe housing, and the previous panel said the same thing. I can't disagree one per cent. The way I look at what's happened downtown in Ottawa here, it's almost like it's too many people and they should maybe spread the shelters out a little more just so people can catch a break, because it just seems like it's too many people. When you have too many people you have so many problems, not to mention there's a beer store and a liquor store right in the middle of the three housing places. I know planning and I know things happen over the course of many years, but it just seems to me almost unethical that this is how the planning has worked out in this city and probably in every city in the country.
Executive Director, Overdose Prevention Society
Everybody wants to live in a safe, clean environment, and people with mental health issues need extra help. Sometimes some of the services or affordable housing are in one particular area, but yes, I think that giving people options to live in different neighbourhoods would be good. It's healthy for people to live in different neighbourhoods.
Executive Director, Bear Clan Patrol Inc.
What I've been seeing is that people are living communally for protection and safety. In Winnipeg we have a strip through Maryland and Sherbrook where there are a lot of homeless people who hang around, and they're in the back of West Broadway and down by the river in the north end in certain areas. They congregate like that for their own safety, and we need to provide better for them so they don't have to feel that way.
Conservative
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Favel, according to an article I read in the Winnipeg Free Press, last year the federal government gave the Bear Clan Patrol roughly $100,000, which, I think you described helped your organization pay staff, etc. It's my understanding that your organization has been forced to scramble this year after Indigenous Services Canada put your 2018-19 funding in limbo. Is that correct?