Despite election promises, Ontario's mental health system is 'not just a simple fix'

After decades of navigating Ontario's serpentine, sometimes baffling and often difficult to usemental health system,it was the courts that delivered the most help.

"At 22, it was the first time she's actually got the help that she needed," said Chris Moss of her daughter Kyla, who, in 2017 was charged with assault in London, Ont.after she told a cabbie she thought she would be sick in the back of his car.

You have to hit rock bottom to get help.- Chris Moss

He tried to get her out, whichtriggered apanic attack that ultimately led her to strike him.

"Because of that she ended up with an assault charge," Moss said, noting that through the courts, her daughter's challenges were quickly identified and addressed by the justice system, something she couldn't get through the conventional system.

'You get bumped around like a ping pong ball'

At an early age,Kylawas diagnosed with anxiety, depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and the combination of all three made getting helpadifficulttask.

Moss remembers waiting, sometimes for years, just to see a certain doctor only to be told the combination of Kyla's conditions or a certain medication disqualified her for treatment.

"You get bumped around like a ping pong ball," Moss said."For example, we waited for a psychiatrist review for a year and when we got in, because it's complex and there's drug and alcohol abuse as well, they weren't even able to give us a diagnosis."

Help always seemed just out of reach, until Kylalashed out.

"She was allowed to go through the mental health diversion program where she finally got into programs that could help her," Moss said."You have to hit rock bottom to get help."

Today,Kylais living inCMHAassisted housing and is receiving the treatment she needs, but others aren't so lucky.

They can end up in hospital,jail, or dead.According to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, 4,000 Canadians die by suicide each year, an average of 11 deaths a day.

Cash strapped mental health system

It's an unfortunate reality of a chronically cash strapped system, as itgrapples with how to deliver limited services amid surging demand.

"Formerly people really wouldn't talk about a mental health issue,"said Beth Mitchell, the CEO of theMiddlesexbranch of the Canadian Mental HealthAssociation."We're really starting to see a change in that."

"The difficulty is our system wasn't developed for that," she said. "The way that things were set up a couple of decades ago really wasn't there to support that kind of attitude to mental health."

The current system is built on the foundations of an old institutional model, where there were few choices when it came to mental healthcare in Ontario. Because of stigma around mental health, people often didn't come forward and when they did, it was with hesitancy and often only whenit was too late.

Ontario's changing system

"They had no alternative. The best choice was to go in hospital," Mitchellsaid. "At that time people stayed in hospital a long time and maybe they never came back to the community or reunite with their families or go back to work."

Since then, not only has Ontario closed many of its oldmental hospitals in favour of a more community-based approach, the public has also changed the way it recognizes and perceives mental health.

"Now people are coming forward with mild to moderate symptoms, much more treatable, much better for people to come forward and get help, they can stay with their family, stay with their job, but the system hasn't balanced out in terms of where the services are," she said. "Funding hasn't kept pace with the demand and the need."

While mental illness accounts for 10 per cent of the total share of the health care system resourcesin Ontario, according to CAMH, it only gets seven per cent of the funding,which works out to a$1.5 billion shortfall.

Parties pledging billions for mental health

A gap like that could explain why mental health is one of the single biggest issues in this provincial election, according to many people who wrote in to CBC News.

The parties know it too, it's why they're pledging billions of dollars to fix the problem.However none of them match the sum CAMHsays the province needs.

The Liberals are committing$2.1 billionover four years to "rebuild" themental health care system, including hiring more mental health care workers in secondary schools and increasingaccess to publicly funded psychotherapy.

The PCsare promising $1.9 billionover 10 years, pledging to cut waiting times for youth who need mental health treatment.

Meanwhile, the NDPhas marked $2.4 billion over four years for mental health and addictions funding. Their promises includestartinga new ministry of mental healthand addictions and hiring2,200 new mental health care workers.

'The systems, they need to talk to each other'

The trouble though, according to Chris Moss, who struggled for 22 years to find her daughter help, is that the solution doesn't fit into a neat, political slogan.

"It's not just an easy fix," she said. "It's awful...the systems, they need to talk to each other."

"The school system, the regular healthcare system, the mental healthcare system and the criminal system, they all need to know about each other and work together," Moss said.