The Government of Saskatchewan’s 2019-20 budget will see the biggest increase yet towards mental health services, including significant additions to the new Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford.
“We knew we needed to do better, we still have more work to do, but we think we have made a huge step forward,” said the Minister of Health, Jim Reiter, in an interview after the budget was released.
“We have made mental health and addictions a huge part of this budget for a number of reasons. Mental health and addictions, not just in Saskatchewan but across the country and probably across North America has become very much a focal point.”
The Ministry of Health has increased funding for mental health by $30 million, for a total of $402 million. The increase marks the largest investment in mental health and addictions services in the province’s history.
According to Dave Nelson, the associate executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Saskatchewan division, over the last few years, the province has been “falling farther and farther behind” in funding for mental health services, so an increase in funding is welcome.
However, he says the goal is to have nine per cent of the provincial health budget going towards mental health, which is what the Mental Health Association of Canada recommends.
For 2019-20, mental health makes up about six per cent.
The Saskatchewan Hospital specifically will receive an increase of $13.7 million from the Ministry of Health, after receiving $14.2 million in new funding from last year’s budget for operating and accommodations costs.
A first of its kind, the secure facility in the Saskatchewan Hospital also received an ongoing investment of more than $7 million through the Ministry of Corrections and Policing, which will allow offenders with significant mental health issues to receive treatment. The facility will be operated by the Saskatchewan Health Authority, and includes 96 beds.
“It is very important that (offenders) receive adequate treatment as they are receiving their sentence,” Nelson said.
“Just generic prisons do a terrible job generally of assisting somebody who has mental health or addictions issues. And if they do not get addressed then people are coming out in even worse shape than they went in.”
According to the Minister of Corrections and Policing, Christine Tell, the facility will be attached to the Saskatchewan Hospital, and will be split into “pods,” with 24 beds in each pod. In the facility, mental health correctional workers and health workers from the Health Authority will be working directly with offenders who are experiencing mental health challenges.
“Approximately 80 per cent of offenders are experiencing some form of mental health issue, whether it is a crisis or whether there’s a level of mental health illness, so it is important,” Tell said.
“If they are experiencing mental health and addictions issues, we need to be able to respond so that they can go live their lives in the community the way they are intended to. People with mental health issues can live normal lives, as in going to school, having a job, doing well with their family connections – they can do it. They just need to be given the chance.”
According to the Minister of Health, whether someone is an offender or not, if they need access to mental health treatment, they should be able to access it, and it is the role of the government to provide those services.
“We need to make sure people are well. It was time for a new hospital there, it should have been done a long, long time ago and so we’re pretty happy with it, that in its own is the single biggest investment in the mental health project in the province’s history,” he said.
