The province is mulling creation of a facility to handle mentally ill patients on the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan says a new police study proves it's about time.
Sullivan is shocked by the report which reveals almost one third of all police calls deal with the mentally ill.
The study also says, in some areas, officers spend up to half their time handling psychiatric cases.
The report says the provincial policy of moving patients out of institutions is a failure and notes even Premier Gordon Campbell agrees not enough has been done to help the severely mentally ill.
The new Vancouver Police Department report revealed a staggering 31 percent of all police-related incident calls involve one or more mentally ill people. It was leaked to media before its official release today. The study is a snapshot of police data from a sixteen day period in September 2007.
Of 1154 recorded calls for service:
- 31 percent of those involve at least one mentally ill person
- 42 percent of all police-related incidents in the Downtown Eastside were mental health related.
The report says that "police are filling a void in mental health service in Vancouver," and claims that officers are bearing the burden of a mental health system that lacks sufficient and effective resources -- with often tragic consequences.
With files from The Canadian Press
