The Canadian Government is putting the wheels in motion to build a national mental health strategy.
$45-million dollars was set aside in the budget to support mental health standards and now those standards will be developed.
Carolyn Bennett is the first Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.
“That means working closely with my colleagues in the provinces and territories, experts, as well as those with lived and living experiences in order to lead a whole of society approach to address mental health and substance use.”
As part of building standards, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research is investing $600,000 in research to evaluate existing service standards for the virtual delivery of mental health and substance use services.
The minister says this isn’t he first time partnerships have been used to develop national standards in health care.
“National standards aren’t a new tool. We have seen how instrumental they have been before such as the Canadian partnership against cancers and standards for cancer care. The partnership informed the development of national standards of the most common as well as high risk cancers.”
Bennett says Canadians have reported increased feelings of stress, anxiety, depression and loneliness and statistics have shown a rise in drug toxicity deaths.
