Status of Women Committee on Feb. 12th, 2014

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I have that, okay.

You talked about funding for training, so a recommendation to this committee is that there should be funding for training. I believe Ontario has a good model that you may want to elaborate on. You also said that eating disorder training is optional in psychiatry, if I remember correctly.

Would you like to make some very specific recommendations to this committee that you would like to see in the report?

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

I'm not able to comment on the training specific to Ontario. I will say that the reason I emphasized the piece around psychiatrists and psychiatry training is that at a bare minimum, I would suggest that all psychiatric residents be required to spend a portion of their training time in the treatment specifically of those who have eating disorders.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

That's the bare minimum.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

The bare minimum, I've underlined it. Thank you.

We hear repeatedly that people land on a different planet. They land in this world they don't know anything about. Families try desperately to navigate the system. Would navigators help?

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

Do you mean navigators who exist to point people in the right direction? Meaning someone that would be affiliated with primary care—

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Yes.

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

—who could then direct folks? We have a system presently here called Access Mental Health and they are a centralized triaging resource. So my experience with them is that they have been quite helpful because they are a resource that physicians can access by telephone and they're also a resource that individuals can access without the need for the interface through a physician.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Does that exist across the country?

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

I don't believe it does across the board.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

I have two last questions. We hear over and over about timely, appropriate treatment and we've also heard people talk about a national research program, but we haven't had that elaborated on. What are the appropriate wait times, and what research program are you looking for?

[Dr. Monique Jericho]

I can speak to the treatment piece and say that appropriate treatment, again, starts with the diagnosis. Once you get a diagnosis then what we can do is to start providing at least the bare minimum of maintaining medical stability and preventing further deterioration.

The question you're asking me is difficult because once we get into these specialized treatment centres...and I can say the bare minimum ought to be family-based approaches for young people, cognitive behavioural therapy plus DBT for folks with bulimia. Then it starts to piece out, because again, not one size fits all. But these are the evidence-based themes that we need to continue to keep moving forward with along with the interventions that are more behavioural in nature around providing food, providing meals, and doing the important nutritional work that needs to happen. So this to me is the bare minimum of an eating disorder program.

But I also have to acknowledge that most people with eating disorders aren't in those programs. So the bare minimum there is they—

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you.

We may have time for one question from Ms. Young. But one very short question with a brief response because of lack of time.

Thank you.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your insightful testimony.

Since I have a very brief time, I wanted to say that I'm a sociologist. What I wanted to ask all of you is if you can send into us—because this is such a critical issue obviously—anything that you were not able to speak about today because of timing issues. But also I'd be particularly interested in you going a bit deeper, because we talked about ED being a symptom, that it's not the root cause, that there are some psychological issues there.

I'd like you to also give us some context for this in terms of if it's 1.5% of the population—we heard figures the other day of 525,000 people across Canada—these are significant numbers with significant mortality rates as we discussed.

Therefore are these incidents increasing over time? If so what could be some of the broader societal or cultural reasons for this, because you've studied this and you work with it daily? How can we address it? Or what are some recommendations you have on that broader basis so that we're not just treating or addressing the symptoms, but we're also trying to look at the root cause to see if we can address some of that?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Thank you very much, Ms. Young.

I would ask the witness to send in the information via the clerk of the committee.

Again, I want to thank you very much for your testimonies. Everybody—

[Joan Crockatt, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

I wonder if Ms. Young could just add something, just another small comment?

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

It's because the bell is ringing. Maybe you could make your request—

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I have a point of order.

I'd like to move for Ms. Young to finish her time. We have lots of time to get to the vote.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Do we have unanimous consent?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

She's been sitting patiently for two hours.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Okay, we'll remember this. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Hélène LeBlanc]

Ms. Young, you can send your request to the clerk.

Thank you very much for your presentations.

The next meeting will take place here at 3:30 p.m. on Monday, February 24.

The meeting is adjourned.