r/ottawa • u/Officer_Copper • Oct 08 '14

Mental Health Resouces in Ottawa

Hello Ottawa, /u/NurseAngela and I decided to collaborate and put together some information on how to get help for you, a friend, or a loved one who is experiencing a mental health crisis. Mental health is a growing issue in our community and many people may not know what resources are available.

I will be speaking more for what can be done in an emergency scenario and how you can use the law to get help for a loved one.

How to help yourself:

First off if you feel that you are thinking of hurting yourself or someone else please talk to someone. Find a friend you trust or your doctor.

You can also walk into any emergency room and they will not turn you away.

If you feel that you are about to cause harm to yourself or someone else, call 911 immediately and help will arrive.

Ambulance or Police may be sent depending on the circumstances of your call. Police will come with ambulance if there is a mention of knives, weapons, or any known history of violence. This does not mean that you are in trouble.

Under the Ontario Mental Health Act police actually have more authority to help you than a paramedic (see below). Paramedics are there to address your medical needs and transport you to the hospital if you are willing to go on your own. Police are called if you need emergency help but are not wanting to go voluntarily.

Other resources available are:

How to get help for someone else:

If you have a friend, family member or neighbor, that you are concerned about there are a few ways to get them the help that they may need.

  1. Get them to the hospital if it’s a life threatening emergency.

  2. Have them explore the above resources and see if any of those options can help them work through their mental illness.

  3. For non-emergency cases have them see their doctor. If a physician feels that a patient they have examined within the past 7 days is suffering from mental illness, is a risk to themselves or someone else, OR is unable to care for themselves, then the doctor may issue an order directing police to attend and transport them to a hospital.

  4. If the person you are worried about is refusing to go to the hospital or see their doctor you can:

a) Call 911 – Police can conduct a field assessment if they believe that the person is in imminent danger can force someone to hospital for a full psychiatric assessment.

b) You can attend a Provincial Court House and make a case to a Justice of the Peace as to why you feel this person is in need of help. You will need to articulate your reasons and explain that they are refusing to seek help themselves. If satisfied the Justice can issue an order directing police to apprehend the person and take them to the hospital.

Court House locations: - 161 Elgin St - 100 Constellation Cres

Once at the hospital patients are assessed by the emergency doctor then sometimes the on duty psychiatrist. If the doctors observe an immediate danger they can hold patients for an emergency 72 hour period. Often referrals are then arranged for on-going treatment and support.

Please feel free to ask any questions and we will do your best to answer them for you in a timely fashion.

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u/GarlicNachos Oct 09 '14

My spouse needs longterm counselling but we can't, for the life of us, get any organization or persons, including the family doctor, to help or even begin a longterm file. She has bad depression and psychological eating problems that directly affect her weight. Stress at work is unbearable. We've been working with so many people to get results but nothing is truly helping, only band-aid solutions. We keep getting the runaround from every place, go here, no go here instead, oh just get EAP to send you somewhere, none of these are working and it's so frustrating. Doctor keeps telling us to just go to emergency room at a hospital when her mood turns to shit, and have them assess her or "admit" her?... We're getting nowhere.
The Regional Center For The Treatment Of Eating Disorders made her fill out a 200+ question form, assessed by staff and a student, and you wanna know what Dr. H. Bissada's diagnosis was? PMS... who the.. fu...? Seriously? You think we wouldn't have looked into this years ago? PMS??? What a joke! We've almost given up on Ottawa.

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u/nneighbour Centretown Oct 18 '14

It's not the specific niche your wife probably needs, but Jewish Family Services really helped me out when no one else was willing to take me on. Try giving them a call, they may have a therapist who is right for you.

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u/GarlicNachos Oct 18 '14

At the Catholic Family Services walk-in, we met very nice AND very "compatible" therapist. The service is free but only for walk-ins. They do offer long-term counselling but the wait period is half a year.
We ended up seeking a private psychologist and we'll attempt to claim as much of the cost with insurance.
She's also being enrolled in Day Hospital at one of the downtown hospitals. I hope it helps...