Friday, January 30, 2015

The failure of dealing with Mental Illness in Canada

I really have compassion for anyone that is dealing with mental illness with their friends or family. Whether it be addictions, the effects of never dealing with issues from childhood that now manifest because you never taken action to heal, or glitches in the wiring of your brain that make you not you anymore. Dementia diagnoses have gone through the roof, and we don't have a safe or compassionate spaces for these people like a country like Denmark provides.

Our system in British Columbia is failing us. There is no shared information so someone can go to their GP, walk in clinics, different ER's, have massive surgeries, and actually none of these care professionals are even talking to each other. I now realize how some addicts can just go from doctor to doctor getting prescription meds for pain and no one will ever know. Our government is trying to crack down on this problem but ultimately our system is set up to fail, plus if an addict wants drugs they should be able to get them, failing to deal with the deeper issues of addiction is where our country needs to continually open their eyes too. I see this lack of a connected over all database system a serious problem and I am not the one that is sick. I may get sick from the stress from having to deal this system.

Why does our carecard number not carry all our visits, prescriptions filled, and diagnoses?  As I see the population aging and my own parents aging, every single visit information has to be repeated. If you forget something (or if you can't even remember because you have lost your cognitive skills), you could be treated for something totally unrelated. Doctors and nurses spend SO much of their time right now not treating the actual problem because of this (Average 25% of ER visits are mental health related). $40 billion annually right now is going into dealing with mental health. A universal system that talks to each other should be started ASAP, and I don't even care if it has no back history, it can start now with the information we give on our next visits. It is that important. I know some people are scared of privacy, but when it comes to your health nothing is private, it's a priority.


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