What does Riverview redevelopment mean for mental health in B.C.?

The B.C. governmentannounced plans Friday to open new mental health facilities on the Riverview Lands in Coquitlam.

The facilities were mostly shuttered in 2012 inthe process of de-institutionalization, but now, the province plans to turn the lands into a mixed-use development that will include mental health facilities, as well as social and market housing.

• Riverviewrevisioningincludes new mental health buildings
• RiverviewHospital: a brief history

But how will the new Riverview fit into the province's efforts to improve mental health services?Health Minister Terry Lake joined On The Coast host Stephen Quinn to discuss the issue.

How will these new facilities help the people suffering from mental illness and addiction who we see almost every day on the streets of Metro Vancouver?

The patients used to be invisible. Now, with de-institutionalization, we see the patients because they are part of our community.

In many cases, they are receiving support in the community. But there are some, particularly in the acute stage of their illness, where they need institutionalized care.

Gone are the days when we can tell someone what we think is good for them and lock them up and force them to take treatment.

You're building two new facilities, spending $175 million, moving the Willingdon Care Programs from Burnaby to Riverview and in the end we only get 17 new beds. Do I have that right?

17 new beds at the acute centre that will be developed at Riverview. But we also added 14 new transition beds at Riverview last year, and we're in the process of building a new 75-bed facility at Royal Columbian Hospital, which is an increase of 45 beds over what they have at the moment.

And that's combined with all the work that's being done by regional health authorities with assertive community treatment teams, with intensive case management teams, so it really is more than what's going on at Riverview.

Help me with the term "wrap-around" care, which appears throughout your release on this. How is that care different or better than what we're doing now?

If you find yourself at the emergency room with an acute mental health issue, you would be stabilized at the hospital, then you would probably find yourself either at one of our facilities at theBurnabycentre we're moving toRiverview, or the new construction at Royal Columbian Hospital.

And then you would transition to facilities like we have atRiverviewthat we announced last year, where you're transitioned from the acuteinstitutionalizedcare on a path that you're able to transition back into the community.

Two years ago, Mayor Gregor Robertson and then Vancouver Policechief Jim Chu said they thought we needed more like 300 beds. How many have you added since they said that in September 2013?

The number 300 was a number put out by the mayor's task force. When we work through those numbers, there really isn't science that says we need 300 secure, intensive mental health beds throughout the province.

What we are doing is creating an extra 500 substance use beds throughout the province by 2017. I think it's simplistic, honestly, to say we need 300 Riverview-like beds when we think of the old model of institutionalized care.

The mayor and chief have suggested more BCHousing facilities. How many units of new social housing are going to be built on the RiverviewLands?

That's still to be discussed. There will be a mix of social housing and market housing.

In the meantime, what would you say to the paramedics, police officers, and ER workers who continue to be the de facto mental health service providers to many people in crisis?

I would say they are part of a team that society has created to look after people with mental health and addiction services.

This isn't a health problem. It's a societal problem. We have to stop saying, "That's your problem, that's your problem."

I think police departments across Canada have recognized that this is part of keeping the public safe and keeping individuals safe. It's all of us looking after a very vulnerable part of our population that deserves and has the right to live independently.

The days of us putting them behind bars and telling them we know what's best for them are over, and we need to get our heads around that.

This interview has been condensed and edited. To hear the full interview, click the audio labelled:Terry Lake talks about what Riverview re-development means