inquiring
reporter
Elizabeth Collings

12 - Sunday, December 3, 1989 - North Shore News

LAST WEEK commercial crab, oyster, clam and shrimp

fishing was banned in seven B.C. areas, sparking outrage
from fishermen. The bans were slapped on after traces of

dioxins and furans (byproducts from

the chlorine

bleaching process) were found in shelifish. Meanwhile the
18-month bans in Howe Sound and Prince Rupert con-

Gay Currie

Narth Vancouver Coquitlam West Vancouver
I don’t think the mills The government has to We depend on the lumber
should be shut down. The enforce the rules they industry.

government should regu-
late them. If they’re shut
down lots of people will
be out of work.

Jim Lemond

have now, and they have
to tighten them. [| think
that’s happening
now both federally and
provincially,

right

equipment.

COPING WITH SCHIZOPHRENIA

Strai

; NEWS photo Terry Paters
WEST VANCOUVER'S Joan Deering reftects upon the days before hier
danghier (in photo) was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Deering’s daugh-
ter, now 30, started evidencing symptoms of schizophrenia in her late
teens and has since spent several years in insiitutions.

Group wants drug alternative

From page 10

treat their depression away, you
may be dead wrong. But if you
treat them with an anti-depressant
so they’re feeling a littie better,
then start examining the issues that
fed to the situation, I think that’s
an appropriate kind of approach.”

Pankratz also questions whether
communities would be prepared to
accept group home residents ‘‘ac-
tively hallucinating’’ on the streets,
but Feldmar says a number of sim-
ilar residences have proven suc-
cessful in England under the guid-
ance of late psychiatrist Dr. R.D.
Laing, and are, in fact, now sup-
ported by the local governments.

“There was no occasion for hostil-
ity with the neighbors,’ says
Feldmar.

Woods says Integra, which has a
membership of about 50 people
“and a large network of sup-
porters,” receives at least two calls
per month from someone looking
for an alternative to drug therapy.
She hopes that Integra will soon be
able to provide that alternative.
‘We can at least give them the
chance of allowing them to go
through (their experience) without
being hospitalized,’ concludes
Feldmar.

For more information about In-
tegra Households Association, cal!
733-4256.

From page 10

- er, As Deering never felt comfort-

able about leaving her alone, she
tried to keep up the family’s social
life by inviting people in. Her
daughter’s sometimes peculiar
behavior, however, made Deering
and her guests feel ill at ease.

**She was trying to control the
situation in her own bizarre way,’’
Deering recalls now. ‘‘Our life just
simply disintegrated.... Gradually,
everything goes by the board and
everything is focused on the ill-
ness.”

The Deerings’ life was affected
to the point that they made the
difficult decision to have Jane ad-
mitted to a residential wing of
Riverview hospital. Now, ‘‘much
to our despair, it seems, the only

A.W. Davidson

I don’t think
the government should do
anything except
some tax relief for ex-
penditure to put in new

How can we stop mills frem polluting?

Hilde Ten Carte
North Vancouver

maybe
really should pay.

place she can function is in an in-
stitution.... It’s the only place she
can achieve a degree of stabilit,.”’

A resident there for the past
three years, Jane is receiving drug
therapy and is currently involved
in assembly-line work in a
sheltered workshop. Her husband
has obtained a divorce which
denies her access to her son.

There are times she can hold
‘‘normal’’ conversations and times
when she seems ‘‘out of touch with
reality.” Above all, says Deering,
Jane is ‘shy, frightened and aware
that she is different from other
people.... She says ‘if { could just
be like other people.’ I think she's
terribly frustrated. Her intelligence
is there, intact.’’

Although Deering says River-
view is the best place for Jane,

tinue. Environmentalists say the miils are not cleaning up
their act fast enough and the government should enforce
compliance with pollution laws. Some even say the mills
should be shut down. But others argue instead that the
government should give the mills incentives to upgrade
their operations in the way of tax breaks.

I really think the regula-
tions should be enforced
more. The fines seem to
be too low. The polluter

Bob Tiffin
Bowen Island

There has to be some
restrictions, but there has
to be enough time for the
mills (to be able to comp-

ly) so it doesn’t too
adversely affect employ-
ment.

‘there is ‘‘a certain stigma attached
to being in that institution which
Jane is very aware of, as are most
of the patients.’’

Deering doesn’t see any alter-
natives, though, as group boarding
homes are currently unable to deal
with Jane’s more extreme
behavior.

More government funding for
programs and housing is needed,
says Deering, to bring ‘‘the level of
care and services up to the level of
other disadvantaged people,”’ such
as those with physical or mental
handicaps.

“‘The North Shore is going to
have to start to sce these people,”
she concludes. ‘‘They’re there, and
there’s going to be more and more
of them.”’

Heaith professionals concerned
with psychiatric waiting lists

From pege 10

employment.”’ Turner is calling on
the private sector to help provide
jobs for people with a mental ill-
ness.

The squeeze is being felt not on-
ly in the lack of rehabilitation pro-
grams, but on the psychiatric ward
as well.

“We're trying to accommodate
the needs of some of our more
chronic patients in a_ psychiatric
unit that is really oriented more
towards acute care,’’ says LGH’s
Dr. Pankratz. ‘‘That puts a
tremendous stress oni the whole
system,”’

Pankratz, who has practised on
the North Shore for almest 20
years, remembers the days when he
could have someone admitted into
the psychiatric ward immediately.
Now, he says, ‘the day of an elec-
tive type of admission to
psychiatry is a memory,’’ and,
even in urgent cases, patients
sometimes have to wait in the
Lions Gate Hospital emergency
ward for up to two days.

“These are people who are so
seriously ill that they can’t be out
in the community anymore,”’ he
says. ‘‘You’ve got them to the
front door, so to speak, but you
can't move them on to the
psychiatric service. We do our best
not to let that happen, because the

emergency department is not an
appropriate place to try to treat
psychiatric patients.”’

Local psychiatrists have waiting
lists of between three and six
months, a situation which local
psychiatrist Dr. Wilson Dilton says
must be alleviared with a team ap-
proach to mental health care.
Many people with concerns can
benefit from courses offered

through the North Shore Family
Services Society, he says, and the

Ardagh

986-4366

Vaca

NORTH VANCOUVER 986-0388

IMPAIRED

Hunter

Barristers & Solicitors
#300-1401 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver

Free Initial Consultation i

B.C. government should consider
covering psychologists — whose
fees are often prohibitive — on the
B.C. Medical Services Plan.

Dillon and some of his col-
leagues have in the past approach-
ed local politicians for the money
to fund more rehabilitation pro-
grams, but to little avail. ‘‘We’re
not going begging,’’ he emphasiz-
ed. ‘‘We’re looking for the money
to deliver the services that are the
right of these people.’’

RIVING

Jurner

Waozenettll

WEST VANCOUVER 926-5541