Money promised in April still hasn’t reached program to help mental health patients
From lfpress.com
What does a health minister have to do to give away some money in this province?
After waiting five months for money promised twice by Health Minister Eric Hoskins, London’s Michelle Solomon and the psychiatric patients she helps would like to know.
“At one point, I couldn’t even think about it any more,” Solomon, executive-director of London’s Connect for Mental Health, said about the long wait. “I’m frustrated. I have no idea what is going on.”
The Free Press got some answers Thursday, but no clear idea of when they can deliver on the health minister’s public vows.
“The South West LHIN is finalizing the funding letter for this service,” Kelly Gillis, senior director of system design and integration for the South West Local Health Integration Network (LHIN), said in an emailed statement.
“The funding will be for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2017,” she said.
Connect for Mental Health ran a program that trained volunteers and matched them with psychiatric patients leaving hospital.
The volunteers had all experienced similar circumstances and helped patients ease back into community life.
The funding for Connect came from a two-year, province-wide research project that studied what’s called the transitional discharge model at nine hospitals across Ontario involving more than 580 patients.
The study found the model, relying heavily on peer support volunteers, reduced the average hospital stay for patients and saving an estimated $2.9 million a year at each hospital.
As well, patients, hospital staff and social service workers all reported feeling more comfortable about the transition from institution to community.
In London, it cost about $106,000 a year for Connect to hire two co-ordinators to run the program.
After the study was completed, the research dollars stopped. London Health Sciences Centre found some money for Connect for several months, but that fund dried up in December 2015.
Read more here.