Pubdate: Thu, 27 Nov 2014
Source: Georgia Straight, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 The Georgia Straight
Contact:  http://www.straight.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1084
Author: Travis Lupick

DEMAND FOR MENTAL-HEALTH AND ADDICTION HELP GROWS IN VANCOUVER

FOR THE PAST three years, a program called Assertive Community 
Treatment (ACT) has emerged as a preferred support service for an 
especially marginalized group of people who struggle with severe 
addiction and/or mental illness.

In May 2014, B.C. Health Minister Terry Lake described ACT as a 
"success story" and announced the province was working with Vancouver 
Coastal Health (VCH) to expand the program, which has a mandate to 
provide care in the community.

There is a need. According to a September 2014 report received by 
Vancouver city council, there are an estimated 2,000 "severely ill" 
hotel tenants (mostly living in the Downtown Eastside) who are not 
receiving the treatment they require for mental-health and addiction 
challenges.

But internal Health Ministry reports obtained by the Straight through 
freedom-of-information legislation paint a picture of a program that 
has often grown more quickly than VCH could accommodate, and before 
complete program evaluations could be performed.

According to those documents, ACT began in Vancouver in January 2012 
with a single team seeing 15 clients who struggled with "complex 
concurrent disorders", a combination of mental illness and substance abuse.

Initially, there were "work space limitations"; 18 months after the 
program's launch, "hiring is not complete," one report reads. 
Another, from October 2013, states: "Staff safety and challenges 
associated with taking on very ill clients continues to be a concern."

Through it all, VCH was implementing adjustments. In January 2014, 
for example, it lowered client-to-clinician ratios so that staff 
could accommodate more complex patient needs.

VCH spokesperson Anna Marie D'Angelo maintains that patient and staff 
concerns were addressed on an ongoing basis.

"This is a very challenging client group that we hadn't served well 
previously," she said in a telephone interview. "With any program, 
there is always going to be growing pains and there are always going 
to be adjustments needed."

Today, there are five ACT teams operating in Vancouver, each with a 
caseload of 80 to 90 clients, for a total of 400 to 450. The annual 
cost for one team is between $1.7 million and $1.8 million, or 
roughly $20,000 per client per year.

The most recent report, dated July 2014, lists most challenges as 
having been overcome. At the same time, "the rapid expansion of ACT 
drained the teams," that document states. Furthermore, "a cost 
benefit analysis has yet to be conducted".

D'Angelo emphasized that VCH is tracking other indicators, such as 
clients' negative police interactions and visits to hospital 
emergency departments. She pointed to a May 2014 Ministry of Health 
release that states that for one ACT client sample, those numbers 
declined by 70 and 61 percent, respectively.

"Those are very costly interactions, and we know that if you can 
avoid those kinds of things that you save the health-care system a 
lot of money," D'Angelo said.

VCH and the province have repeatedly used those numbers as proof of 
ACT's success. But according to the reports, the sample on which they 
are based is restricted to the first group of clients ACT served in 
Vancouver-just 15 people.

What's more, according to the July 2014 report, most of those clients 
are no longer under ACT care. "Of the initial 15 patient 
cohort...only 3 are left," it reads. The rest either were found not 
appropriate for ACT, moved to other services, or left town.

One achievement repeated most often in the documents is the 
development of a "close working relationship" between health-care 
providers and the VPD. That rapport also came up in interviews with 
two critics of ACT, who both described it as their number one concern.

As a founding member of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users 
(VANDU), Ann Livingston has spent two decades working with ACT's 
client base. She also coauthored a highly critical 2013 report for 
VCH that presents "client perspectives" on health care in the 
Downtown Eastside.

In a telephone interview, Livingston argued that expansion of ACT 
services in Vancouver has occurred within the context of increasing 
police involvement with the mentally ill. "It would appear that 
nothing is going to be funded unless it uses police as part of the 
model and goes with this sort of law-and-order, federal approach," she said.

Livingston called attention to a five-year spike in VPD apprehensions 
made under the Mental Health Act.

"This [ACT] is a preferred way to provide services to a marginalized 
group that further disempowers and sickens those people," she said. 
"The other preferred way is the criminalization of those people."

In a separate interview, VANDU executive director Marion Allaart 
explained the potential implications of providing mental-health 
services alongside a police escort.

"If you've got a police officer beside you, then no drug user is 
going to talk to them openly and give them what they need," she said. 
"There won't be an exchange that's really worthwhile."

VPD Const. Brian Montague acknowledged that clients might initially 
be concerned. (According to VCH figures, the portion of Vancouver ACT 
clients using illicit substances may be as high as 100 percent.) But 
the police spokesperson stressed officers are not placed on ACT teams 
to arrest people for minor drug offences.

"We make that clear and part of that is written into our policies 
with regards to attending overdoses and all that sort of thing," he said.

Allaart maintained ACT teams need to work harder to engage the 
community. "This is what is going to make the difference: to have 
peer-led, user-run programs where people can communicate with each 
other and learn from each other," she said.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom