10 - Sunday, December 3, 1989 - North Shore News PROVINCIAL PLAN KEEPS GETTING DELAYED IN THE mid-1950s, Riverview Hospital housed 5,500 peo- ple suffering from various forms of mental distress. Since then, with an increasing number of people being treated at the community level, that number has dropped to 1,110 — but North Shore mental health professionals say that this community, like others, is ill-equipped to deal with its added responsibility. **Some of these people who have come into the community probably had more going for them when they were at Riverview,’’ Lions Gate Hospital psychiatric unit head Dr. Werner Pancratz said recently, pointing to what he believes is a dearth of community resources. *‘We’re trying to accommodate the needs of some of our more chronic patients ina psychiatric unit that is really oriented more towards acute care."’ — Dr. Werner Pankratz e fos Teer Pan His sentiments were echoed by a number of other North Shore mental health care experts who were unanimous in calling for more sheltered employment, rehabilitation services and housing. These issues are supposed to be addressed in a forthcoming pro- vincial Mental Health Plan, the purpose of which is to outline the final downsizing of Riverview Hospital and allocate funds and services to communities so that they can provide adequate mental health care to their increased number of clients. Consultation over the plan, now complete, took place over the last four years, but announcement and implementation, expected this year, repeatedly. ie have been postponed By PEGGY TRENDELL-WHITTAKER News Reporter “We don’t know what stage the plan is at,’’ said Dr. Walter Goresky, senior psychiatric advisor to the provincial government. “However, our impression is that it was quite favorably received (by the cabinet).’’ Calls to the provincial Ministry of Health, intended to elicit in- formation on the date of the plan’s announcement, were not returned. Goresky says the plan calls for 300 of Riyerview’s 1,100 patients to be released into the community, and the remaining 700 beds to be decentralized into various areas throughout British Columbia. He is confident, he says, that the costs saved from minimizing the number of hospital inpatients will be enough to boost community resources to an acceptable level. In the meantime, however, communities continue to suffer from a lack of mental health resources as they struggle to pro- vide care to a large population of chronically ill individuals. Some rehabilitation services are provided by the North Shore branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association. The association provides jobs:in the Canora Cafe, a small cafeteria run out of the Lucas Centre at 21st Street and Hamilton Avenue, and operates a landscaping work pro- gram, but the ‘total number of work spaces available falls short of the number of people who could benefit from the confidence and self-esteem that such a work placement can bring. Says David Turner, senior psychiatric social worker at the province’s North Shore Communi- ty Mental Health Centre: ‘*We can train them in work habits, but we can’t give them normalized See Health Page 12 health resources lack nm ry Be ce NEWS photo Mike Wakefield WHILE THE Canora Cafe at the Lucas Continuing Education Centre provides a sheltered employment oppor- tunity for the clients of the Canadian Mental Health Association, mental health professionals across the North Shore agree that far more employment training opportunities are needed. Here, Leigh Thomson (right), food service instructor of Canora Cafe, and Bonnie Berdahl! serve up some muffins. Group offers therapy alternative WHILE NORTH Shore mental health care professionals agree that more funding is needed to better serve their clients, not all see eye-to-eye on what forms of treatment are most beneficial. Cathy Woods is a North Van- couver therapist and chairperson of the Integra Households Association. The association, founded in 1984, is currently soliciting funds for a group home where mentally or emotionally distressed people can live at their own pace without being forced to adhere to a medication schedule or live up to strict household rules. Integra’s executive director and registered psychologist Andrew Feldmar says the aim of such a res- idence would be ‘‘to give asylum to those people who would like to choose to go through their dif- ifiness takes toll on family Joan Deering, a member of the North Shore chapter of B.C. Friends of Schizophrenics, is the mother of a woman diagnosed with schizophrenia. JCAN DEERING’S bright teenage daughter is gone. In her place is a 30-year-old woman who has spent the past 11 years in and out of hospital psychiatric wards. Deering and her family have faced the possibility that ‘‘Jane,”’ now living at Riverview, will never be able to hold down a job or live on her own. Coming to terms with this blow has been a slow, painful process that began when Jane’s illness first began to surface at the age of 16. By PEGGY TRENDELL-WHITTAKER News Reporter saying — as if she was in another world. “By then, we did know that something was wrong, but we couldn’t put our finger on it,’’ the West Vancouver woman said. “Our life just simply disintegrated... Gradually, everything goes by the board and everything is focused on the illness.”’ At that point, no one knew why Jane’s once-high grades began to slip. A puzzled school counsellor described her as strangely ‘‘aloof.’’ That word came back to haunt Deering when she and her husband took Jane to Hawaii a few years later — after Jane had quit school in Grade 12 and moved away from home. Decring says it was sumetinies as if Jane couldn't hear what she was — Mother of schizophrenic daughter, Joan Deering rr ree The problem came to a head when Jane married and became pregnant. During the pregnancy she started to act ‘‘very strange’’ and it was shortly after the baby was born that she was admitted to the Lions Gate Hospital psychiatric ward. She spent the summer in the hospital, then returned home. Four days later, Jane attempted suicide through a massive drug overdose. There followed a period of uncertainty, frustration and worry. For the first six years of her illness, Jane was not diagnosed as schizophrenic. ‘‘In the first three years, we just kepi thinking, ‘Soon, shell be better.’ I was angry at her. J think we all were, thinking, ‘Why couldn't she get her act together?’’’ Jane’s behavior ranged from the bizarre — she would refuse to dress herself for weeks at a time or run out in the street wrapped in a blanket and direct traffic in Wese Vancouver — to the suicidal. Other times, says Deering, she could be ‘‘very caring, very loving and very perceptive.’”” During this time, no one in the family discussed the guiit that they were all feeling. ‘‘We felt very, very much that it had to be some- thing we’d done.’’ In this sense, the diagnosis of schizophrenia brought with it some relief. Although the cause of schizophrenia has not deen deter- mined, it is known to have a genetic factor, and it is no longer commonly thought that the home environment is the primary cause. This knowledge didn’t help ail- feviate the day-to-day strain of car- ing for Jane in their home, howev- See Strain Page 12 By PEGGY TRENDELL-WHITTAKER News Reporter ficulties with a minimum of inter- ference.’’ This concept, however, is in direct opposition to the philosophy held at most existing group homes. In North Vancouver’s Cloverley House, run by the Marineview Housing Society, manager Jili Fisher says the environment is kept “as normal as possible.’? House rules dictate that each resident complete chores every day, dress for each meal, and stay off their beds and out of their rooms be- tween 9:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. from Monday to Friday. While Feldmar says the tradi- tional mental health care system dismisses his group as ‘foolish romantics,” he insists that being attended by therapists who have “no fear of... madness’? is more effective than a highly structured environment or medications. “(Therapists) vho use medication don’t trust in the efficacy of their own presence,’’ he says. Dr. Werner Pankratz, head of Lions Gate Hospital’s psychiatric unit, defends the use of medication in treating depressed patients: ‘‘I could show you people who are so depressed that they won’t get out of bed, they won’t wash, they won’t bathe, they won’t do any- thing. You ask them a question and you may or may not get an answer, they’re so profoundly withdrawn into themselves. If you think that you’re going to have this enlightening kind of discussion and See Group Page 12 on sale all December, tov. 50% OFF ALL 1’’ CUSTOM BLINDS 70+ COLOURS TO CHOOSE FROM Our prices are so low, they don’t stand a chance. 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