The electoral campaign will be launched tomorrow. Will the subject of accessibility to mental health services and psychologists be at the heart of electoral issues?
Posted yesterday at 2:00 p.m.
Remember that the prevalence of several mental health disorders, the number of suicide attempts among young people and the use of antidepressants, even among children, have greatly increased in recent years.
Mental health problems, although invisible, have devastating effects on the individuals who suffer from them, on those around them and on society in general.
Let us think of the parents who, in spite of themselves, no longer manage to take care of their children properly or who unload their pain of living or their anger on their little shoulders.
Let us think of the parents who are unable to obtain psychological help for their child who refuses to go to school because of recurring panic attacks. Some have to call the DYP for lack of access to psychologists. Moreover, the youth centers are overflowing to the point that some young people have had to stay in CHSLDs for lack of space. Meanwhile, sadly, the number of psychologists working for the DPJ is melting like snow in the sun.
Think of the work stoppages that reduce business productivity, while the labor shortage is glaring. Isn’t it essential to have workers in good psychological health in order to promote the economy?
Consider the effects on emergency room wait times: for lack of adequate services, people with mental health problems come to the emergency room, even though they know it is not the ideal place to receive the care they need. Given the complexity of mental health issues, an ED visit for such issues takes, on average, about four hours longer than a visit for other reasons.
What about the many students who have significant academic difficulties, but who fail to be assessed to identify the underlying reasons for their repeated failures? Failures that too often undermine their self-esteem and can lead them to drop out.
How can you give them the help they need when there is only one psychologist for 2,750 students in Montreal schools and the wait is six to 24 months to see a psychologist in the health network?
Thank you to all those who will make electoral commitments aimed at quickly ensuring better accessibility to psychologists in our public network, free and integrated services in care teams as well as school teams. Without special attention, this profession is heading straight for complete extinction within our network.
Concretely, this would mean that people who need evaluation and psychological services would not have access to them and would risk seeing their problems become more complex. Like a child who is hospitalized following a suicide attempt or a car accident and who can no longer sleep or do what is necessary to recover, despite the support of several other professionals. Or a young person who experiences an escalation both in terms of the substances he consumes and the acts of delinquency he commits due to complex traumas.
Without access to psychological services, the root of their ills will not be treated and their difficulties may increase.
Can we afford to have youth centres, schools, hospitals, CLSCs and rehabilitation centers without psychologists in the province where the ratio of psychologists per inhabitant is the highest in North America? I add my voice to that of more than 7,000 Quebecers who have signed our petition asking to quickly improve access to psychologists in the public network and I answer, without hesitation: “no, we cannot afford it”.