Who Makes the Decisions?

Recently there was a report of an extraordinary example of political interference in mental health treatment. A political interference based not on knowledge but as far as I can tell, based on stigma or perhaps with a bit of so called “law and order” pandering to the uninformed.

The story unfolds in this way. A person who is in secure treatment for a murder committed when he was psychotic applied to have supervised outdoor walks. The mental health treatment team supported that application and it was permitted by the Criminal Code Review Board who are charged with the responsibility for such decisions. Without these walks (remember that they would be supervised – that is, the person who as far as I know has improved with treatment would be accompanied by two trained mental health staff during short outings) the person would have to languish indoors all summer.

Upon hearing about this decision, the Minister of Justice in Manitoba – Andrew Swan, overturned the board’s decision, ordering that no supervised walks could be allowed! Why? According to Swan it was “contrary to the interests of public safety”.

What hogwash. Since when did Minister Swan get his credentials in mental health? And what possessed him to overturn a duly constituted and credible evaluative process? Could it be stigma against the mentally ill? Could it be the lowest form of political pandering to ignorance and fear? What kind of a message does this send to people living with mental illness? What message does this send to their families? What message does this send to society in general?

Shame on Minister Swan. This is something we could have expected in medieval times, not in 2010 in Canada.

--Stan