BURST
The B.C. government announced proposed amendments to the Mental Health Act on Monday designed to better protect front-line health care workers who treat patients taken into involuntary care.
Premier David Eby and Health Minister Josie Osborne announced the changes at the B.C. legislature on Monday. They said the amendments, if passed, would update a four-decade-old section of the Act that offered limited legal protection to front-line health care workers who treat involuntary patients.
“By strengthening involuntary care and protecting the people who deliver it, we’re taking an important step to support vulnerable patients, help their families and build a more responsive mental-health system where no one falls through the cracks,” said Eby in a statement.
Section 31(1) of the Act would be replaced with “a more modern and clearer liability-protection provision,” according to a news release. Eby and Osborne said the wording of the existing legislation “has sometimes caused confusion about its intent” and it needs “more explicit and up-to-date language to clearly support the work of health-care providers.”
The changes would also help clarify the purpose of the Act, which is to provide treatment to people who need it, they said.
“Treating people with severe mental-health and substance-use challenges often requires urgent, informed decisions,” said Osborne. “The proposed amendments reduce ambiguity in the Mental Health Act to better ensure that care is provided when someone is unable to seek it themselves. This is another step toward improving outcomes for vulnerable patients and building a system of care that works for everyone.”
B.C. has more than 2,000 mental-health beds able to provide involuntary care as needed, and the NDP government is “urgently working” to open more.
In June, the B.C. government opened 18 involuntary care beds at the Alouette Correctional Centre in Maple Ridge. The facility inside the women’s jail was designed to provide specialized care for individuals, both men and women, struggling with extreme mental-health challenges and severe brain injury from repeated drug overdoses.
It followed an announcement in April that 10 beds were opening at the Surrey Pretrial Centre. Unlike in Surrey, the Alouette beds aren’t for those in custody and awaiting trial but rather people held at secure health-care facilities under the Act by Vancouver Coastal Health.
Work is underway to open other mental-health facilities in Surrey and Prince George that would offer both voluntary and involuntary care.
“When used correctly and consistently, the Mental Health Act ensures people suffering from severe mental disorders get the timely care and protection they need, even if they are unable to seek it themselves,” said Dr. Daniel Vigo, B.C.’s chief scientific adviser for psychiatry, toxic drugs and concurrent disorders.
“We are finalizing work to ensure that when it comes to children and youth, the Act allows us to work with parents to provide the urgent, life-saving, evidence based interventions they require to prevent acquired brain injury and develop long-term therapeutic approaches.”
Vigo said more details are coming soon.
The Mental Health Act has been in place since 1964. In 2022, amendments to the Act allowed people who have been taken into care involuntarily to get support from an independent rights adviser.
With files from Alec Lazenby