Province issues 1-year progress update for mental health and addictions plan

One year after Newfoundland and Labrador began implementing a new mental health and addictions plan, the province says there's been a 35 per cent decrease in the number of people waiting for treatment.

The Department of Health said the average wait to see a mental health professional in St. John's hasdecreased significantly from 21 months to 24 days.

Those are just some of the numbers in an updatetoTowardsRecovery: The Mental Health and Addictions Action Plan for Newfoundland and Labrador released Wednesday,

On the BurinPeninsula, where a cluster of suicides had advocates calling for more mental health services,wait times for carehave been reduced from 180 daysto 0.

Premier Dwight Ball's Liberal government has pledged to implement all 54 recommendationsby the all-party committee for mental health by March of 2022.

In the progress report, the province said that 18 short-term recommendationshave been completed, as well as 2 medium-term ones.

Using the Memphis model of mobile crisis intervention, 161 visits to homes were made in April compared to 84 in April of 2017.

There are also two new permanent psychiatrists in Labrador since last year.

The Department of Health saidapproximately$197.3 million will be invested in mental health andaddictionscare in2018 and 2019.

One of the cornerstones of the province's mental health care plan is the replacement of the Waterford Hospital in St. John's with a new94-bed facility, which the province has said will be built as an attachment on the existing Health Sciences Centre campus.

It plans to partner with the private sector for that facility.

Health department taking over inmate care within ayear

On Wednesday, in the wake of the deaths of four inmates inside correctional facilities across the province, Health Minister JohnHaggiesaid taking over inmate healthcare is an "immediate priority."

Part of that plan means continuing care for an inmate in counselling or seeing a doctor before, during and after incarceration.

Currently, health care inside correctional facilities is handled by the justice department, but Haggie said lots of academic work shows that's not ideal for the mental or physical health of inmates.

"We've actually moved the manager of health from justice and public safety into our departmentas a first step," he said.

"We've also been teeing up the regional health authorities to make sure that they have the capacity and the alignment of programming to be able to move in and run, take over, manage and implement physical and mental health care within the corrections facility."

Colleen Hanrahan, whose research helped inform these changes, said this is a welcome change.

"The point is how do you administer a health care program when you know nothing about health care, when your job is security within a prison," she said.

Haggie said he expects that the Department of Health will have full control over health care inside Newfoundland and Labrador prisons within one year.