Youth needing urgent mental health care forced to wait more than 100 hours in Abbotsford Emergency

Children and teenagers are being force to wait more than 100 hours in Abbotsford Regional Hospital's ER because of a lack of beds.

"Vulnerable youth end up being placed in the adult psychiatric unit, alongside patients who may have sexually inappropriate behaviour or aggression, which is not safe patient care" says BCNU President Gayle Duteil. "And young children in need of urgent mental health services are being placed in the general pediatric unit with newborns, where treatment is very limited."

BCNU says an immediate solution would be to reopen a state-of-the-art adolescent psychiatric unit, which was closed a few years ago.

The number of children and youth hospitalized for mental health issues in the Fraser Health Authority has more than doubled in four years. More than 1,200 needed urgent care last year.

In November, the province's own Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth declared the current situation across BC "alarming." The Representative for Children, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond? has repeatedly warned the mental health system for children is failing, and an SFU report prepared for the Ministry of Children and Families concluded that only one third of children who need help are getting it.

"Kids in crisis need immediate care. They can't wait for more government reports or 10 beds Surrey will open in 2016," says Duteil. "They need help now."

Budget increases in mental health have not kept up with inflation or population growth. The lack of spending growth is reflected in staffing levels. In 2008 there were 59 front-line nurses in the Child and Youth Mental Health department of MCFD. This year, the number has dropped to 42.