NUPGE: Better mental health care will shorten wait times

'Canada still does not have a national comprehensive strategy for the prevention and treatment of mental illness.'

Ottawa (24 June 2008) - The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) says Canada's mental health system must be brought into the mainstream of Medicare to provide better care for millions of Canadians and to help shorten the waiting time for care.

Short Wait Times - A National Mental Health Strategy is the sixth in a series of NUPGE publications outlining "10 steps to ensure we get more and better care – faster."

"Research tells us that about one in every ten Canadians over the age of 15 years will at some point experience a mental health problem-including alcohol or substance abuse," the latest pamphlet says. "The social and economic costs to Canada associated with a growing prevalence of mental health conditions cannot be understated."

Inadequate access to mental health services means that more people must rely on emergency rooms and hospitals, often when another form of intervention would be better, the publication says.

"Not only is this often not in the best interests of the person experiencing a mental health problem, it also means that wait times for other patients become longer," it adds. "There needs to be a national strategy to assist in the creation and funding of community-based services, staffed by mental health professionals, available at all hours-from coast to coast."

The pamphlet is a component of NUPGE's 10-Step Plan for improving and expanding public health care services as a way to return to short wait times and improving the health outcomes for Canadians. The 10 proposals for health care renewal are steps aimed at bringing new thinking and knowledge into the system, a system that already performs well generally but could, and should, perform better.

If these proposals were acted upon, Canadians would see wait times reduced significantly and the health care system placed on a more sustainable path.

NUPGE encourages union members and the general public to use these pamphlets to inform family members, neighbours and friends of the next steps that can and should be taken in the evolution of Canada's successful but unfinished Medicare system.

"It is time that mental health services be brought into the mainstream of Canada*s public health care system," the union argues. "We will all benefit!" NUPGE