I have struggled for years to find access to suitable mental health services. I had to design my company’s benefits program to include an additional mental health benefit top up plus access to a referral platform to allow my staff to circumvent the awful family doc -> Primary Care Network system here in Calgary, I’ve ended up being connected to a remote therapist that practices in Ontario.
I have between 80-100 staff, and our benefit stats show that the category of mental health is the single largest spend (mental health related Rx costs plus mental health related specialist spend).
A good friend launched a start up that is basically an alternative to the mental health referral platform I mentioned, and he told me something shocking. For the entire country of Canada, a population of over 30 million people, there are only about 1,100 licensed mental health practitioners. Oh, but Bell has a sweet ad campaign about talking once a year, so that should make up for it.
I can’t imagine how difficult it is if I also had to gain access to substance abuse resources on top of mental health resources. I’m barely keeping it together as it is.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Biff
If the NHL ever needs an enema, Edmonton is where they'll insert it.
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