Once again the mentally ill on the Sunshine Coast have had to go hat in hand to the general public to help them over yet another financial crunch.
Arrowhead Centre Society the group that has struggled long and hard to provide services for people with mental illness on the Coast must be commended for their sheer staying power. Many a lesser group would have given up in pure frustration long ago.
Why is it so hard for our area to get the help those with serious and persistent mental illness in our area need? After a great hullabaloo there was finally a department in the local hospital designed to help those who need psychiatric help, after only a few months it's closed down, again we ask why? It's hard to believe Vancouver Coastal Health has anything approaching a heart when it comes to the most marginalized of our citizens. Why is that? Could it be the cavalier attitude we, the citizens, have to folks whose heads are so messed up they can't in many cases speak for themselves. Perhaps this lack of services stems from our thin-veiled air of superiority - the idea that this could never happen to us. Or perhaps it's the fear that if we have anything to do with these folks whatever they have wrong with them will rub off on us.
A not farfetched fear because if statistics are to be believed one out of every four people will experience mental illness in their lifetime. Count the members of your family. Is the number higher than four? Which one of them could you imagine thrown to the street wolves to fend for themselves? Which one of them could you imagine self-medicating on street drugs and alcohol as a way to try to fit into an uncaring society? Which one of them could you imagine having to sleep on the street because that's the only alternative they have?
If you don't believe that's the experience of the mentally ill among us pick up the phone and talk to the people at Arrowhead. And while you're at it call the people at Vancouver Coastal Health and ask them why it is the services for the mentally ill are so pathetic. Ask the health service why there is no money in the budget to convert the old RCMP barracks to a proper centre for Arrowhead members. If they tell you it's up to the people to advocate for themselves ask yourself how they can do that when three years of attempting to have fallen on deaf ears.
Finally pick up your phone and call Nicholas Simons our MLA and tell him the mentally ill matter to you. It's high time we all spoke up. Arrowhead needs us.
