Addictions minister: Ontario needs more capacity than forced treatment

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trilliuma Village Media website dedicated exclusively to covering provincial politics in Queen’s Park.

Associate Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Michael Tibollo said Monday that proposals to force more Ontarians with serious mental health and addictions into treatment will have to wait until the province’s mental health system has more capacity .

At a news conference held inside the complex care facility at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), reporters asked Tibollo about calls from Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown, Mayor of Barrie Alex Nuttall and Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis to make changes to the Mental Health Act allow people, especially those living in camps, to be sent for treatment without their consent. Brown’s preferred term for this is “compassionate intervention.”

Tibollo initially tried to dodge questions about involuntary treatment, including comments from Premier Doug Ford last week suggesting Tibollo is a “big fan” of the idea.

“What I’m a big fan of is treatment and recovery,” Tibollo said before finally giving in after The Trillium noted that Mayor Brown had also stated that the minister “admired” the proposed involuntary treatment being implemented in British Columbia.

“When it comes to compassionate interventions, I think that’s something that really needs to be studied and looked at,” Tibollo said.

“Personally, my view is that until we have the system built that allows people to get treatment, when and where they are, we really need to continue to focus on that.”

Tibollo has repeatedly stressed that the Progressive Conservative government’s current priority for the mental health system is to “increase capacity.”

The government is achieving this, he said, by creating a system of new Homeless and Addiction Recovery Treatment (HART) centers in Ontario communities and making strategic investments in the system of care mental health, including Monday’s announcement of $19 million for early psychosis. Intervention program at CAMH.

“This is an extremely important piece at the moment,” he said. “We will continue to build that capacity and look at how we can help more people.”

Aside from decrying the impact on patients’ rights, critics of the mayors’ mandatory treatment proposals have pointed out that Ontario’s mental health system lacks the capacity to handle an influx of involuntary patients.

“Emergency rooms are discharging patients who voluntarily seek addiction treatment and shelter every day because there are no available slots,” University Health Network emergency physician Raghu Venugopal told social networks. “There are patients who need psychiatric admission to the hospital. But again, there are no beds available.”

Ontario Overdose Prevention Society Coordinator Zoë Dodd said the same.

“People are in crisis all the time trying to access the terrible systems we have now and can’t get help,” he said.

British Columbia is working to provide capacity for its proposed involuntary treatment by building secure mental health treatment facilities in provincial jails, such as the Alouette Correctional Centre, as well as hundreds of health beds mental in conventional hospitals.

Tibollo downplayed the use of prisons in British Columbia when asked what specifically he admired about the plan.

CAMH psychiatrist and vice president for research Dr. Aristotle Voineskos warned against legislative changes to increase involuntary mental health treatment at Monday’s press conference, noting that the Mental Health Act it already has provisions that allow people to be treated involuntarily.

“It’s something that our doctors use very carefully and cautiously when someone has such a serious illness that they pose a very high risk to themselves or others. This is the test,” explained Voineskos.

“It’s possible that a small subset of (people living on the streets) will meet that test, but a lot of people who probably won’t. I think at this point we have tools at our disposal to really help people when they’re in dire straits risk”.