N.B. falls short of target to improve system following suicide of teen
CBC
Chris Daken isn't sure the government has made enough changes to prevent his daughter's death if she were to walk into an emergency room today — exactly 15 months after she asked for help at a Fredericton hospital and walked out without any.
Even with all of the promised reform, Daken isn't sure Lexi would be given the help that she needed.
"I have the hope that she would have been," he said. "But I would still be skeptical that she would."
Sixteen-year-old Lexi went to the emergency room at a Fredericton hospital on Feb. 18, 2021 and asked for mental health help. After waiting for eight hours, she left without getting any mental health interventions. She died by suicide a week later.
The Maugerville teen's death sparked widespread debate over the gaps in the mental health care system. Health Minister Dorothy Shephard quickly acknowledged that the system was broken and she vowed to fix it.
She immediately asked both of the province's health authorities for input on how to do that. Based on that input, Shephard announced in May 2021 that the government would implement 21 recommendations within the fiscal year that ended March 31.
According to a status report provided to CBC News by the Department of Health, only seven of the 21 recommendations are listed as complete.
Daken isn't pleased with the province's completion rate.
"Do I think the government's done enough yet? My answer is probably 'no,'" he said.
"Am I happy to see that they're doing stuff? My answer is 'yes.' But I do think that they should be doing more and they can be doing more."
He even wonders about the status of the seven that are listed as "complete." Very few of them, he said, improve mental health access in hospital emergency rooms — something he has always hoped would be a priority for the government, given what happened to his daughter.
Among the seven "completed" recommendations is a provincial awareness campaign for addiction and mental health crisis response services, which the province says has already been launched.
The department also says it has already developed and distributed "crisis care education/resource materials to individuals and community service providers," and adapted 811 as a 24-hour addiction and mental health telephone response line.
Twelve of the recommendations centre on mental health care provided in emergency rooms. They included creating a "standardized suicide care pathway" for every patient who presents with suicidal thoughts; better training for staff on how to deal with mental health issues; expanding mental health care teams assigned to emergency rooms, and providing mental health care around the clock.
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