FREDERICTON New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard says she has asked the province’s child and youth advocate to review the mental health crisis services that exist in the province. On Wednesday, Shephard answered questions from the media for the first time since the death of Lexi Daken. The 16-year-old waited at the Everett Chalmers Hospital emergency room for over eight hours to see a psychiatrist, according to her parents. She never saw one. Daken died by suicide on Feb. 24. Shephard said she has spoken with Horizon Health Network senior officials to discuss “how we can address crisis care in our emergency rooms.”
Louise Rice drove hours from Quebec to New Brunswick to see her dying father. But during the final hours of his life, she was left stranded in the hospital parking lot prevented from going inside to say a final goodbye because she did not have the right paperwork to obtain the rapid COVID-19 test necessary to enter the premises.
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New Brunswick has seen a roughly 16 percent increase in demand for mental health and addictions services since the pandemic began.
The province has unveiled a five-year action plan aimed at addressing the demands.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard admits the province is currently not meeting the national benchmark for these services.
Shephard recognizes how COVID-19 has impacted our mental health and wants to move this plan forward in a timely manner.
“There have been serious consequences of COVID-19 in our society with regards to families not being able to be with loved ones at the end-of-life and families who can’t get together… those needs are real.”
More walk-in clinics, mobile crisis units coming this year, vows health minister
New Brunswick health minister Dorothy Shephard says she s working to get people the help they need when they re ready to ask for it and before they go into a deeper crisis.
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