Mental health centre to be built in Ontario for first responders with post-traumatic stress injuries
CBC
Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory, along with representatives from the Runnymede Healthcare Centre, are announcing the creation of a rehabilitation centre dedicated to treating first responders and medical personnel with post-traumatic stress injuries.
You can watch that live in the player above.
A few weeks ago, dangerous thoughts raced through Kevin Doherty's mind. The district chief with Toronto Fire was off work after getting his hip replaced and pain reverberated through his body.
He stared at two hydromorphone pills, weighing how he might use the opioids.
"Maybe I'll just crush them and snort them," he thought, his addictive mind in overdrive.
But the 57-year-old held off, called 911 and went to the hospital, where he learned he had a blood clot.
"They were just thoughts," he said of the momentary temptation. "But a lot of times what happens is people act upon those thoughts."
A decade ago, before rehab and therapy, he used to act on those thoughts, especially when the toll of his job got too much. He wished there was a place for first responders to go when their minds turned on them.
"I call it my lost decade," he said. "We need a safe spot for first responders to recover and get treatment. Maybe if we had one, I'd have those years back, maybe not."
Soon, such a spot will be built.
With funding from the provincial and federal governments, a Toronto health-care facility is set to build and run a rehabilitation centre dedicated to treating first responders and medical personnel for post-traumatic stress injuries.
The Runnymede Healthcare Centre is set to detail its plans on Thursday afternoon, alongside Premier Doug Ford.
For Doherty, such a centre could have helped him deal earlier with the horrors he saw on the job.
There was the time in 1992 he fought a massive blaze where a fire captain got lost inside a building and died. "I just put it on the shelf and it was never dealt with," he said.