Province lauds new mental-health-care unit

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This article was published 13/12/2018 (1950 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province celebrated a major overhaul of hospital services in Winnipeg Friday with the opening of a 75-bed unit that consolidates mental-health care.

Health Minister Cameron Friesen opened the new $7-million unit at Victoria General Hospital with officials on hand from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

“Next week, mental health patients will begin to arrive on these floors at the Victoria,” Friesen said. “The consolidation is about clinical success. This is about getting better care for patients who are admitted to hospital. We are confident these investments will really make a difference.”

With the change, Victoria becomes the location for the second largest mental health care unit in the city, after the 100-plus beds at Health Sciences Centre. The other centre is St. Boniface General which will maintain its 30-plus bed unit.

The three sites together are now considered to be centres of excellence for mental health. They will focus care on patients suffering from severe mental health problems including schizophrenia and severe depression. One in four Canadians will experience mental health problems during their lifetime but only one in 10 will need hospital care to recover.

Victoria will specialize in geriatric mental health care services. The new services amalgamate a former 21-bed unit at the Vic with 54 other mental health care beds that will be closed now at Grace General and Seven Oaks General.

The newly renovated premises represent the second biggest consolidation of hospital services under the Pallister government after the controversial overhaul of city emergency departments a year ago.

“There’s efficiencies for sure about getting people together in one place but the focus here is on clinical care, better outcomes, shorter waits, less moving around for patients,” Friesen said. “We know that clinicians who . . . can’t wait to get started and next week patients begin to arrive on these floors at Victoria.”

Construction of the new wing took 18 months and saw the entire Victoria hospital undergo renovations floor by floor. The 75 new beds are spread over three floors of the six-storey hospital on Pembina Highway.

The three floors are all locked units which means patients can’t exit by stairs or elevators without key cards held by staff. Changes include state of the art design fail safes: There are no beams or structures that could be used in suicide attempts, not even coat hangers in the rooms. In addition to those safety features, the floors include kitchens for simple cooking and patient lounges for group sessions. The new units also include neutral wall colours intended to be soothing as well as extra space and lots of windows for natural lighting.

One former patient was impressed.

Emily Walker spent 10 days as a patient at Victoria nine years ago, a hospital stay that she said Friday saved her life.

“This seems a lot warmer,” she said as hospital officials escorted the health minister and WRHA officials on a tour of the unit.

“Before it was kind of sterile and cold,” Walker said. “And we definitely didn’t have a kitchen.”

The care she got changed her outlook, allowing her the space and time she needed to recover, she said.

“It was the most vulnerable time in my whole life and I sat with a doctor and decided to be admitted and that experience changed my life,” Walker said. “I’m standing here today because I chose to live,” she said.

Being back helped Walker realize how much different her life is now. A law student back then, she graduated but didn’t go into a career in criminal law, which she had intended. Today, Walker is a policy analyst, in the final preparations for her wedding in two weeks.

“Life is really good. It’s been a journey but talking about that time in my life now? It really feels like I’m a different person,” Walker said.

Dr. Jitender Sareen, medical director of the WRHA’s adult mental health program said the consolidation of services allows clinicians to pool their expertise and patients will be the better for it. “It is important for people to know that high quality, community mental health services remain available across the city, including at the Grace and Seven Oaks,” he said. Patients who need hospital admission will be referred to the Victoria, he said.

The Victoria will still maintain its existing urgent care, as well as some acute care medical care, cancer care and a full surgical slate.

alexandra.paul@freepress.mb.ca