P.E.I. MLAs question province on how mental health campus will improve access to care

Warning: This story deals with suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, you can find resources for help at the bottom of this story.

Opposition MLAs questioned government officials during a standing committee meeting Wednesday about how the province's new mental health campus will improve access to care. 

Liberal MLA Carolyn Simpson shared a personal story about her experience trying to get help for her husband, Dave, who died by suicide about five years ago. 

"I wasn't heard, I wasn't listened to and I tried every angle I could…. But the system was not there for him," Simpson told officials with Health P.E.I. during the meeting.

"I recognize his illness was severe, and I recognize that his reality of living to be an old man was slimmer and slimmer as time went on. However, in that moment, I truly believe that had I been taken seriously, we might have had another intervention for him at that point in time." 

Simpson said being denied access to care for her husband may not have changed his outcome.

But as the province constructs its new mental health campus, she said the government needs to improve services for those advocating on a family member's behalf. 

"When a family reaches crisis and they identify that they're in crisis, you need to listen differently," she said. 

Health P.E.I. is working with families to understand how to better help their loved ones who are struggling — especially children, said Rebecca Jesseman, executive director of mental health and addictions with the provincial health authority.

"I'm truly confident that in a similar situation today we would be able to provide more options," Jesseman said. 

"We're certainly working with families in many of our child and youth programs, recognizing the importance of family member involvement, and we'll continue to look into how to increase the program access." 

Reaching people as early as possible is key, said Jesseman, and education partners are best suited to be working with young people on a day to day basis. 

Although student well-being teams are in place in schools across the Island, Green MLA Karla Bernard said they're not enough. 

"We need to have a few full-time mental health professionals in schools to help kids in real time where they are, because that is true trauma-informed care," Bernard said.