Health Minister Maureen MacDonald announced June 1 that Dr. Michael Ungar and Joyce McDonald would co-chair the committee. Ungar is a social work and family therapist with more than 25 years’ experience and a professor at the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University. McDonald has worked for the Colchester East Branch of Canadian Mental Health Association for 24 years with a background in psychiatric nursing. She works as a patient rights advisor for the Empowerment Connection.
However, the new co-chairs are just lower level mental health care providers, says Roswell, and he wonders why the government did not appoint someone more prominent in mental health care services.
“Even someone from outside of the mental health field, who is media savvy and with the ability to influence policy would have been a better choice,” Roswell said. “I think that it just goes to indicate how serious the province is about developing a workable mental health services strategy.”
But he does agree a mental health strategy is necessary.
“We need one because there’s no overall vision of what mental health services should be in the province. Although we have mental health standards, the standards themselves are weak,” he said.
The provincial auditor general’s recent report concludes that Nova Scotians are not getting adequate mental health care. The report states there is inadequate oversight of the mental health system with no effective monitoring of compliance regarding mental health standards through the Department of Health. The province introduced mental health standards in 2003.
“The auditor said that our mental health services system needs a drastic change,” Roswell said.
An audit was done of Annapolis Valley District Health Authority, Capital District Health Authority, Colchester East Hants Health Authority and the IWK Health Centre, which showed just 14 per cent of 358 files reviewed met all standards.
Roswell said the province should implement recommendations based on the auditor general’s report rather than waiting for a mental health strategy committee to come up with its own recommendations.
He said the mental health strategy committee might just become an excuse for the Department of Health to drag its heels on providing more and better mental health services right away.
ldelong@digbycourier.ca
