GROUP LOBBYING GOVERNMENT FOR MORE MENTAL HEALTH FUNDING

ORGANIZATIONS COLLABORATE TO IMPROVE COMMUNITY CARE

'Our goal is to help people receive lower-costed community-based services'

Significant changes are occurring in the way mental health care is being provided across north Simcoe.

A collaborative effort is being made to adapt and improve mental health and addictions services in order to meet the growing needs of the region.

A working group, led by Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care staff, is in the midst of implementing evidence-based strategies to help take pressure off local emergency departments and provide improved care in the community.

"Our ultimate goal is to divert people from the emergency department and try to support them within their community with the appropriate level of supports and services, so that they don't ever make it to the hospital," said Dr. Valerie Grdisa, CEO of Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Simcoe County.

Grdisa is one of many local health officials sitting on a clinical services integration implementation emergency response committee focused on this task.

The group has been lobbying the government for more funding to improve mental health supports and services in the community. According to Grdisa, this would save the system a significant amount of money in the long run.

- Dr. Valerie Grdisa

"The cost of three hospital stays is the equivalent of being cared for in the community for a year," she said. "So, our goal is to help people receive lower costed community-based services and have those interventions happen in the community, so they don't make it to the emergency department."

Doctors at Waypoint are working with Georgian Bay General Hospital (GBGH) physicians to increase support to those who present to the emergency department with acute mental health needs.

An urgent care clinic has been created in order to allow those patients

to be seen within one to two weeks, rather than weeks or months.

"We have been working with emergency department physicians to figure out which patients would benefit the most from these urgent consultations," said Young. "We want to make sure that their first stop is the right stop and that they are not seeing the wrong person."

The GBGH emergency department now sees about 1,700 mental health visits annually — a 300 per cent increase from 2018-19.

This average length of stay for mental health patients who are at GBGH longer than 24 hours rose

from 32 hours to 42 hours between 2018-19 and 2021-22, as hospital capacity struggles to meet the growing needs of the community.

"There is such a tremendous need," said Young. "The need was there even before the pandemic, and it very much intensified during the pandemic."

Conversations are also being held with hospitals in Barrie, Collingwood, Orillia, Muskoka and Parry Sound to see how Waypoint can assist these facilities in meeting the growing mental health needs.

"We envision this process continuing to grow and expand over time to meet the need," said

Young.

For the past three years, Waypoint has consistently been operating 12 to 25 beds more than what they are funded for in order to meet the growing needs of the region, according to Young.

With this need holding steady, officials are looking for a permanent solution. A proposal has been submitted to the Ministry of Health by Waypoint requesting funding for 20 additional beds, so the hospital can properly address the needs of the region.

An old wing has already been cleared out at the hospital and is ready to be renovated for those additional beds if and when the funding request is approved.

"If we are able to open up more beds, we can take people out of emerg and look after them here, which leaves ERs open to look after acute medical problems," said Young. "It will allow us to have the right ratio of high acuity beds to regular beds so that we can flow patients through efficiently."