Tuesday, 16 April 2024

Month: June 2018

It is really about basic dignity and respect – Louise Bradley on mental health care and living in institutions

For me, the testimony by Louise Bradley, CEO of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, was one of the highlights of this week’s proceedings at the human rights inquiry. That’s why I was pleased when she was willing to be interviewed. We talk about mental health, the harm of living in an institution, stigma, and the benefits of community living. Louise was at one time heavily involved in the East Coast Forensic Hospital in Dartmouth, and we also talk about the folks there who have been conditionally discharged but can’t get the supportive housing they need. So they just stick around, sometimes for many years.

Remembering, a poem by Killa Ch′aska Mitchell–Atencio

We’re very happy to present Remembering, a poem by Killa Atencio, a wonderful poet of Mi’kmaq and Quechua ancestry. It’s the first of eight poems we will publish during the remainder of the year, selected as a result of the call for poems we issued a while ago.  

‘Quest is a warehouse, I stand by that,’ parent tells human rights enquiry

And another day at the human rights inquiry into the lack of supportive housing for people with disabilities. Two mothers talked about the horrors of institutionalization, in particular the circumstances at Quest in Lower Sackville. Wendy Lill mostly talked about policy issues relating to the disabilities roadmap, a government policy document written at that brief point in time when community advocates had some real hopes that things would get better, only to be disappointed once again.

Residents of psychiatric ward could have come home, human rights enquiry hears

Today’s update on the NS Human Rights Commission’s enquiry into the lack of supportive housing for people living with disabilities. We learn that their former supportive housing provider wanted the folks languishing at Emerald Hall to come home, and we hear one parent talk about her worries that at some point in time she will no longer be able to take care of her son.