Shortage of child psychiatrists in Ontario forces some kids into private care, others to ER

Sarah Cannon has two daughters in need of mental health care.

The older daughter has bipolar disorder; the other has an anxiety disorder. Cannon, the executive director of Parents for Children's Mental Health,is working to make sure her daughters get the care they need, but the prospect of that is not all good.

Approximately one in five children in Ontario strugglewith some kind of mental health problem,according to the Ministry of Children and Youth Services.

About 70 per cent of mental health problems have their onset in childhood or youth.

Compare them to the relatively small number of child psychiatrists only 26 practicing in Toronto, and there are parts of the province with none at all and the help those young people need is often out of reach.

Metro Morning7:20Mother calls for more child psychiatrists in Ontario

Many children struggling with mental health issues end up in the ER, instead of getting the long-term support they need. Matt Galloway spoke with Sarah Cannon, a mother of two and executive director of Parents for Children's Mental Health.

"I'm having to access treatment privately for my youngestbecause we just haven't been able to access and get treatment in a timely fashion for her," Cannon said.

Paying out of pocket for mental health care for her daughters is a big sacrifice, she said. But she said a larger sacrifice would be losing her younger daughter to suicide. Cannon is a single mother afterher husband and the father of her children suffered from mental health issues and took his own life.

'Worst come, first served'

Cannon's youngerdaughter, who has an anxiety disorder,has attempted suicide multiple times. Each time, she is admitted to hospital. At the hospital, Cannon said there was very little treatment, and no discharge planning.

"I found we were just in this cycle of presenting to the hospital, and thenbeing discharged and starting again," she told Metro Morning. "You end up in crisis, which takes you to the emergency room, and I'm not sure emergency rooms are equipped to deal with children and youth specifically that have self-harming behaviours."

Cannon said she felt "criminalized" in emergency rooms, feeling shame and guilt for what has happened.

"What scares me is the amount of families and kids that end up in crisis but then are actually successful in their suicide attempts," she said.

The province is currently in the second year of a youth suicide prevention plan. That includes a $1-million provincial fund to support local suicide prevention efforts, with $28,500 going directly to some child and youth mental agencies.

In addition, the province is dedicatingmore than 2,500 additional psychiatric consultations per year through its Tele-Mental Health Service for kids in remote, rural and underserved regions.

But Cannon still thinks the system is not operating as it should.

Part of that means children can get mental health support sooner, instead of ending up in an emergency room.

"I want community-based mental health agencies to be funded and resourced appropriately so we can have access to those treatments and assessments in a timely fashion so that we are not in a perpetual state of crisis of 'worst come, first served.'"