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One of Gravekeeper's threads in the main forums produced this in the commentary:
My family includes a mentally ill woman. She's perfectly fine almost all the time, as long as she's got the correct meds. But sometimes, her neurochemistry goes wrong. Gastric illnesses which prevent med absorption, for instance, are a nasty time.
We can support her most of the time, but occasionally she needs professional help, at times when her regular psychiatrist or GP* are unavailable. We've tried taking her to the emergency room. We've tried using the community 'crisis team'. We've tried calling in the emergency locum service. Each refers us to the others, and tells us there's nothing they can do for her.
(* GP: General Practitioner. Regular 'family doctor' type doctor.)
We've asked her GP and her psychiatrist for help too, and they're trying to get us some sort of after-hours support. But the facilities just aren't there.
She's just fine almost all the time, and she's a wonderful person. There is no need - so long as she's medicated - for her to be in an instution. But we do need effective, available, community support services for her. And they're just not available.
I don't know what sort of discussion I want here, it's just a very frustrating situation for us.
Originally posted by Buglady
She probably should, on purely compassionate grounds; can you imagine how chaotic and frightening her inner life must be? But there isn't anywhere for her to go.
The deinstitutionalization movement in mental health care hit especially hard in BC. Basically, there aren't any hospitals left; I believe that the entire Vancouver Health Region (population 2 million or so) currently has a grand total of less than 100 beds for psychiatric patients. You have to be an immediate danger to yourself and to others before you can even get on the waiting list for voluntary treatment (at which point they basically say "good luck with not killing yourself for six months, here's a crisis hotline number"), and the involuntary commitment process is almost as bad.
Phoning people and harassing them takes a backseat to the people pushing each other in front of the Skytrain and/or killing and eating each other
The deinstitutionalization movement in mental health care hit especially hard in BC. Basically, there aren't any hospitals left; I believe that the entire Vancouver Health Region (population 2 million or so) currently has a grand total of less than 100 beds for psychiatric patients. You have to be an immediate danger to yourself and to others before you can even get on the waiting list for voluntary treatment (at which point they basically say "good luck with not killing yourself for six months, here's a crisis hotline number"), and the involuntary commitment process is almost as bad.
Phoning people and harassing them takes a backseat to the people pushing each other in front of the Skytrain and/or killing and eating each other
My family includes a mentally ill woman. She's perfectly fine almost all the time, as long as she's got the correct meds. But sometimes, her neurochemistry goes wrong. Gastric illnesses which prevent med absorption, for instance, are a nasty time.
We can support her most of the time, but occasionally she needs professional help, at times when her regular psychiatrist or GP* are unavailable. We've tried taking her to the emergency room. We've tried using the community 'crisis team'. We've tried calling in the emergency locum service. Each refers us to the others, and tells us there's nothing they can do for her.
(* GP: General Practitioner. Regular 'family doctor' type doctor.)
We've asked her GP and her psychiatrist for help too, and they're trying to get us some sort of after-hours support. But the facilities just aren't there.
She's just fine almost all the time, and she's a wonderful person. There is no need - so long as she's medicated - for her to be in an instution. But we do need effective, available, community support services for her. And they're just not available.
I don't know what sort of discussion I want here, it's just a very frustrating situation for us.