I am David Albert Newman. I was born in 1976 and I am now 34 years old. I have Schizophrenia. It is only a small part of me now. But at one time it was a large part since I was suicidal, depressed, anxious, hallucinating and delusional.
I recovered with medication and effective psychological-social rehabilitation counselling with a skilled, empathetic, and tireless mental health community worker at CMHA-Winnipeg Region. I recovered so well, by resilience and empowerment that I volunteer as the CMHA – Winnipeg Region Board Treasurer. I was also a volunteer with the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA) – Winnipeg Chapter as a Board Member and Education Committee Member.
After recovery, I pursued higher education to receive my Certified Internal Auditor designation and my Association of Chartered Certified Accountant designation, to accompany my CGA designation and my Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) – with Distinction. During the fall of 2009 I commenced my MBA, and subsequently I want to study for my Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA). I want my MBA and DBA studies and research to focus upon mental illness, housing, and poverty relative to organizational analysis and the economy. My research will be both descriptive and prescriptive. My focus will be Occupational Health Psychology and Organizational Theory. The reason is that I had persistent troubles with work and I was fired from four jobs, but I was the only one to be found at fault. Employers must share responsibility for the health and safety of employees.
Studies show, such as the Schizophrenia in Canada: A National Report by the Schizophrenia Society of Canada, that there is extended wait time from GP to psychiatric treatment for individuals with a mental illness. Numerous other studies have outlined the high costs of both productivity losses for the economy and mental illness hospitalization.
Given this knowledge, we need to first minimize medical professional and other societal citizens' stigmas and biases towards mental illness patients. Second, more importantly, but following the first point, we need to minimize wait times by hiring more psychiatrists (doctors and nurses), along with psychologists, and community mental health workers, while ensuring they are highly trained and adept at diagnostic medicine (and treatment if so needed). Finally, and most importantly, we MUST encourage PREVENTATIVE ANNUAL MENTAL HEALTH CHECK UPS, BEFORE CRISIS STRIKES i.e. severe depression and anxiety, psychosis, suicide attempted and completed, etc.
This move to Annual Mental Health Check Ups, integrated across the medical professionals, community mental health workers, and patient mentioned could, 1) Save the health care system millions by moving the service wait time bottleneck to the forefront of care where it is less costly compared to the back end hospitalization, 2) Improve the quality of life drastically for the family and the individual with the mental illness before a crisis occurs requiring more significant recovery, and 3) Minimize mental illness stigma by creating a preventative and proactive medicine mindset for medical professionals, community mental health workers, patients, and other citizens.
The Annual Mental Health Check Up for the specific young patient (early age identification is critical to more effective treatment than later illness onset) could consist of risk and mitigation factor analysis including:
• A genetic familial history of mental illness;
• The positive and negative social experiences and stressors;
• The coping behaviours, including substance abuse;
• A symptom delineation of mental illness and whether matching thoughts and behaviours have occurred;
• The social support network;
• The financial support network and financial debt status (in general terms); and
• A preliminary diagnosis, treatment (both medication and psychological-social rehabilitation counselling, if needed), and mental illness acceptance counselling for the patient, family members, and close friends
To achieve this drastic change in thinking, proactive Government promotion of mental health maximization and mental illness minimization are needed considering socially acceptable Annual Mental Health Check Ups. Mental illness stigmatization minimization marketing should also occur, in tandem, for best effects.
Furthermore, we need to re-conceptualize the mental health care system communication, consult, and thus cross competencies. I see a conceptual problem with mental health care to be tested and it is that it may be perceived and enacted as a "continuum of care" rather than a "Venn Diagram of care". The continuum of mental health care places medicating psychiatrists at one end, and community-based counselling services at the other end. In the middle are psychologists. This is a linear representation of care.
This creates a mutual exclusivity and exhaustive presentation of reality that is sub-optimal to integrated mental health care. This arises due to deep specialization.
Instead, we need to keep specialization, but we need coordinated overlap of mental health services. Medication AND counselling are key to mental illness recovery and leveraging of human creative knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Thus, the best depiction of this integrated but specialized model of mental health care is the Venn Diagram. In the centre is the overlap of the service care provided to the patient/client/consumer of mental health services who is also at the centre. This is a multiple circular representation of care.
With this re-conceptualization of the continuum of mental health care, we will move to strengthen coordinated and integrated mental health services to empower mental health service consumers' recovery and to become the best that they can be.
All that is left is to break down the silos that exist between the end points of the continuum of care.
My psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse said three things to my parents when I was completely out of it:
1. David will never work again and will have to be institutionalized for the rest of his life
2. There is no counselling help in Manitoba
3. CMHA Winnipeg cannot help David
I found number two and three to beat the odds of number one. To which I say, it is hard enough to recover from a severe mental illness such as Schizophrenia, Depression, AND Anxiety, but it is made even more difficult when the psychiatric care does not counsel you and provides no solutions beyond heavy medication.
That is where CMHA Winnipeg came in to empower me with a highly skilled and empathetic counsellor in the Rehabilitation and Recovery Service for Psychological-social rehabilitation (PSR).
Thus, the medications were a basis start, but I needed CMHA Winnipeg to re-build skill and confidence to obtain and to hold a job and to learn how to live day-to-day caring for myself. After that, everything else fell into place (especially since I kept my house). Some may say, and to some degree I concur, it's like teaching a baby to walk again. Mental illness can be that bad, but growth afterwards can be that good. As such, I pose to the Minister of Health, please consider my story and know that the continuum of care needs to change to what I propose for greater recovery rates as efficiency, effectiveness, and economy of the mental health care system but in combinational terms of moderate medications from "professionals" and counselling from "grass roots" human beings as human beings for human beings.
Medications matter. But so do people.
