Wellington County and Guelph hospitals are receiving more than $3 million in provincial funding to expand emergency mental health services.
“People just didn’t always talk about mental health problems, but we know the problem is there and I think this is a wonderful fund the ministry has made available to us to address this issue,” said Tom Sullivan, board chair of North Wellington Health Care (NWHC).
Wellington-Halton Hills MPP Ted Arnott agreed, saying, “Mental health services are an often overlooked part our health care system and it’s better if people can access the services they need right here in our community.”
NWHC, which operates hospitals in Palmerston and Mount Forest, and Groves Memorial Community Hospital in Fergus will each receive $326,100, while Guelph General Hospital will get $2,416,300.
“Guelph got the lion’s share of it because we depend on Guelph for these resources,” Sullivan explained. “North Wellington and Groves, we don’t have psychiatrists on staff, Guelph does, so they make these resources available to us if we run into a situation where we have a mental health or addictions patient.”
The funding application was a joint effort.
“We’re pooling the funding that Guelph General, North Wellington Health Care and Groves received,” Sullivan said.
“And there’s quite a defined action plan as to how to utilize this that will make more mental health professionals available on evenings and weekends. There’s additional mental health nurses being made available and there are safe rooms in Guelph hospital being built with this money.”
Groves board chair Howard Dobson said, “It means there will be more on-the-ground help for people with mental health issues and there’ll be easier transference of patients who need to be transferred to Guelph.”
Sullivan explained that in the past if there was a mental health case on the weekend or a holiday there wasn’t proper care available in the county.
“This is emergency mental health so the idea is … we will have access to nurses, mental health practitioners like psychiatrists, etc. immediately,” he said, adding there will be resources available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In Guelph that means there will be a mental health nurse on call 24/7 and at Groves hospital, Palmerston and District Hospital and Louise Marshall Hospital, mental health assessments will be available evenings, weekends and holidays.
A press release from Arnott stated that a new program manager to oversee all mental health services within Guelph and Wellington County will also be hired.
“With this new and important funding, we are working to ensure that patients in the Guelph and Wellington area have faster access to the right care, now and in the future,” said Dr. Eric Hoskins, minister of health and long-term care, in a press release.
The funding will give the hospitals the tools to provide timely crisis intervention, psychotherapy and support to patients and families.
Patients who need daily support will receive more dedicated care.
“It’s really going to help us in rural Wellington be able to provide the level of care to our residents similar to the level of care the urban counterpart gets,” Sullivan said.
Approximately 30 per cent of Ontarians will experience a mental health and/or substance abuse challenge at some point in their lifetime.
“Most of us don’t have to go very far before we know of somebody, either in our family, friends, etc. who have had to use or will need to use mental health services, either in the future or in the near term,” Sullivan said.
