NEW MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY A RETURN TO INSTITUTIONAL CARE

Willingdon Centre Will House, Treat Those With 'Severe' Psychological
Issues

VICTORIA - A new mental health facility will open its doors Friday at
the old Willingdon youth detention centre in Burnaby, marking a move
back to institutionalized care for B.C.'s most vulnerable.

"It's a significant departure," newly named Housing and Social
Development Minister Rich Coleman said Tuesday.

"Some people would call it reinstitutionalization, and I don't
actually argue with that," he added, saying he hasn't ruled out making
changes to the Mental Health Act to allow for more powers of committal.

For some, a move to institutionalized care may conjure memories of
abuse or mistreatment, but Coleman said it is the right approach.

"We have a group of people that are very badly addicted to something
who also have severe mental health issues," he said, explaining there
are about 300 people in the province who he thinks need the high-care
level Willingdon can provide.

"We need to be able to put you in a place where you have to stay,
where you are going to be taken care of - we're going to address your
alcohol and drug addiction issues - and we'll give you the time, a
couple of years in some cases, to actually address these issues," he
said.

Coleman said Willingdon will have the capacity for about 100 clients
and that the clientele will come to the facility voluntarily, through
a mental health worker or through the community courts as an
alternative to incarceration.

He added the goal of the program will not be to cloister people with
mental health problems from the world, but instead to "stabilize them
long-term within our society."

Coleman added a similar facility is scheduled to open at the old
Riverview Hospital site in Coquitlam by the end of this year.

On Tuesday, Elizabeth Zoffman, a psychiatrist who used to work at
Riverview, said Coleman's announcement raises "more questions that it
answers."

"Any new beds that come on stream need to be carefully thought out
within the legal structures and the planning needs to include both
what comes in treatment but also what comes after treatment," she said.

"What about the fact that you can't certify people who aren't mentally
ill? And you can't certify people who are simply on drugs and alcohol?
What about the fact that judges can't mandate treatment? What about
the fact that no matter how long they stay, there isn't any place for
them to go?" she added.

New Democratic Party critic for homelessness and mental health David
Chudnovsky had other concerns.

"We'll be looking at this carefully, but I worry about the term
institutionalization," he said.

"In the past, institutionalization meant warehousing people away and
apart from the rest of the community and I don't think that's
particularly helpful," he added.

Chudnovsky added that the province falls short in serving the entire
mental health community, and that a few hundred beds will only be the
beginning.

"They're opening this facility, and it's a good idea to provide that
intensive treatment option, but there are thousands of people who need
less intensive treatment who aren't getting what they need."

The province first announced a rough plan for the Willingdon facility
earlier this year, and on Tuesday, Coleman - the former forest
minister, whose portfolio included housing - said it helps to
illuminate the direction he'd like to go with his new ministry.

"If you take the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, we've done things
basically the same way for 25 or 30 years and got the same result," he
said.

"You have to ask yourself the question whether there's a way you can
do it differently, how you integrate you services to get better
results," he added, saying integration will be the focus of his new
ministry.

"For years we basically built housing, and so there you were on your
own," he said.

"What will look different is ... when you move into here we are also
going to have 24-hour support in the building ... it's not going to be
a den for people getting in and out and doing drug sales and all of
that sort of stuff," he said.