Dear Editor:
On Feb. 17, the North Shore News published a story by Erin McPhee headlined Talk at the Top - Students Rally in Support of Peers with Mental Illness. As a member of North Shore Youth for Mental Health, I was heavily involved in Talk at the Top and its organization. We took a huge step towards educating students and our schools about mental health, but there's still much to be done.
Talk at the Top opened my eyes to how absurd our teen mental-health services are. On the second day of the conference, my friend told his story: His friend had attempted suicide, so he waited with her in Lions Gate ER for three hours waiting to get help. During those three hours, nobody, not one psychologist, not one doctor, came to help. Someone who is already lost in life shouldn't again be lost when they get to the hospital.
There is no specific area for adolescents with mental health issues at the hospital. They are either sent to pediatrics, where the staff is trained to deal with physically, not mentally, ill patients, or they are sent to the adult psych ward which is in no way a welcoming place.
Usually an admitted adolescent will be seen by a different adult psychiatrist each day. Changing doctors means that important information slips through the cracks, that there is no real relationship formed with doctor and patient, and that the teens don't get the care they need.
Possibly even more important is that psychiatrists need an extra two years of schooling to be certified in treating adolescents as opposed to adults, so one cannot safely assume that the doctors dealing with adolescents at Lions Gate are fully trained to do so.
With the new HOpe Centre for mental health there is an extra floor yet to find its purpose. It is obvious that a ward specifically meant for teens is of utmost importance. If we can get designated beds for adolescents, then the adolescent psychiatrists will come and our teens will be better cared for.
Adults keep telling us that we are the future, that the future depends on us. But I think that, right now, we need to think of what the adults can do for their teens.
Cara McGuire North Vancouver
