Yellowknife psychiatric patients watched: hospital

Stanton Territorial Hospital in Yellowknife says its involuntary psychiatric patients are well monitored, even though one patient has gone missing twice in the past two weeks.

Judy Lynn Poitras, a 44-year-old involuntary psychiatric patient, walked away from the facility on Wednesday afternoon but was found Thursday at a downtown residence.

RCMP said Poitras appeared fine when she was found. She was immediately taken back to the hospital.

Poitras had previously left the hospital on Feb. 3, but RCMP found her the next afternoon.

Stanton officials would not speak specifically about Poitras's case, but they said the facility cannot have 100 per cent control of its patients at all times.

Gradual process

"All of our in-patients in general are always assessed before they go outside, and they have a doctor's order that allows them to do that," Kathie Pender, the hospital's director of patient care, told CBC News on Friday.

"In saying that there's a challenge, there is [one] in terms of the patients can be unpredictable."

Pender said patients staying at the hospital's psychiatric ward are allowd outside for fresh air and exercise, in order to help them prepare to be integrated back into the community.

"This is a very graduated process. A patient doesn't automatically just go outside on their own. There are multiple steps in that process that a patient earns," she said.

"Our psychiatrist reviews the care plans for all of our psychiatric patients, and the nurses are very, very well-skilled in terms of assessments and maintaining a very, very good relationship with our community partners," she added.

Patients cannot stay in the psychiatric ward indefinitely, as the hospital aims to provide holistic care and discharge patients once they have been cleared by doctors, Pender said.

Other missing-person cases

At least two other individuals with mental health issues have gone missing in Yellowknife in the past year, prompting some to call for changes to the N.W.T.'s mental health system.

To date, no one has located Angela Meyer, 22, who disappeared from her parents' house on Nov. 27. Meyer, who has schizophrenia, was home on a weekend pass from the hospital's psychiatric ward.

George Collins, a 37-year-old former computer technician who has schizophrenia, was missing for three weeks this past fall. Following several searches, Collins was found alive by his uncle near a local trail.

While not all of the recent cases involved hospital patients, Pender acknowledged that the territory's mental health system needs improvements.

"Mental health services in general are lacking a lot of resources, in this community, in the territory, in the North in general," she said.

Pender said it would be fantastic if more resources could be allocated for mental health programs, but she said Stanton Territorial Hospital is doing the best it can with the resources it has.