Rise in mental illness cases prompting a push to get a new mental health centre in Surrey
Posted October 6, 2015 10:21 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS 1130) – The number of kids and teens showing up to the ER with mental illnesses has doubled in the Fraser Valley.
That’s the main reason for the push to get a new mental health centre built in Surrey.
Jane Adams with the Surrey Hospital & Outpatient Centre Foundation says the project calls for ten beds which will help roughly 1,000 young people every year.
“In Fraser Health, as well as in the rest of Canada, we are seeing almost a doubling over the last five years in the number of children from six to teens showing up in emergency with symptoms of mental illness.”
Based on the numbers, she admits there’s just not enough services available right now.
“Although one in seven children in the province have mental illness, only one in four receive the care to have gaps in service as well as that sort of stigma and judgement attached to it, it’s tough.”
Construction for the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Stabilization Unit or (CAPSU) has already started, but about $500,000 is still needed to get it up and running by 2017.
