The Enemy Is Neglect of Mental Illness. The Ottawa shooter hardly fits the mould of sleeper cell terrorist - Mitchell Anderson (maybe there are upsides to all this, exposing underbelly of Feds Provs Municipal govt chronic social safety net inadequacies + deficiencies for our most unfortunate) Warehousing the mentally ill: This year the Correctional Investigator for Canada, Howard Sapers, called prison conditions for the mentally ill grossly inadequate. Increasingly these prisoners are being warehoused in solitary confinement due to lack of proper facilities or personnel. Sapers told The Tyee last February that retention of qualified treatment staff is one of the most pressing concerns. Many of the psychology positions are currently filled with individuals who do not have the qualifications to be licensed psychologists and this really has a very negative impact on the treatment that offenders with mental health issues have in federal penitentiaries. In his most recent report to Parliament, Sapers found, More offenders are presenting with complex mental health, substance abuse and addictions issues. For example, upon admission, 80 per cent of federally sentenced male offenders have a substance abuse problem and nearly two-thirds reported that they were under the influence of substances during the commission of their offence. ONE IN FIVE Canadians is coping (or not) with a problem involving mental health or addiction -- a situation that is growing worse. Within a generation, 8.9 million Canadians will be living with a mental illness. There is also a clear link between poverty and mental health. People in Canadas lowest income group are up to four times as likely to report poor mental health than wealthy Canadians. As many as two thirds of homeless people report also dealing with a mental illness. It remains a national disgrace that in virtually any Canadian city, the neglected and disgorged mentally ill of our society continue to sleep outside for lack of any better alternative. Mental illness also costs Canada billions. Recent research itemized the economic burden at more than $50 billion per year. In Ontario, the disease burden of mental illness and addiction is one and a half times greater than all cancers put together and seven times more than all infectious diseases. Poverty affects THREE MILLION Canadians (nearly a third of our population!!!) and ONE IN FIVE children (BC replete with profuse affluence amongst many citizens, has worst record in Canada for child poverty!!!), one of the worst rankings in the OECD. More and more physicians are drawing a direct link between poverty and poor public health outcomes. Health care remains the biggest line item in any provincial budget and collectively costs Canada $211 billion each year. Perhaps the most effective long-term strategy in controlling those costs may involve making sure that Canadians are not getting sick simply because they are poor. Rather than trying to turn our country into a fortress -- a staggeringly expensive strategy with virtually no real world evidence of preventing terrorism, we should instead invest our efforts in making Canada a more humane, healthy (and safe) place to live. That would be a more noble and Canadian response to this ignoble and tragic act. thetyee.ca/Opinion/2014/10/25/Enemy_Is_Neglect_Of_Mental_Ilness/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=251014
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 18:08:48 +0000
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