Mental health and safety in the community

All the evidence to date suggests that the stabbing in Assiniboine Park, last Thursday, is more evidence that improved diagnosis and treatment of mental health conditions plays an important part in helping to make our community safer.

For some reason this message has not yet got through to the NDP government. As I pointed out nine days ago, (see blog for November 4), the attention to the mental health system by the NDP has been less than adequate.

Having people wait for hip and knee operations is bad. There is tremendous unnecessary pain and discomfort, and people often can not work when they want to.

But when people with severe mental illnesses do not get immediate diagnosis and treatment, not only is the life of the individual in danger, but the life of others may also be put in danger as we saw with the incident in Assiniboine Park.

A safe communities strategy must include major improvement in dealing with mental health issues. Adding more policemen is unlikely to have prevented the incident in Assiniboine Park. But quick diagnosis and treatment of Anuj Sharma's mental illness would likely have prevented the problem and the double tragedy affecting the lives of both Lucien Debreuil and Anuj Sharma.