New Government, New Opportunity, and an Old Problem with Access to Mental Health Care

For those concerned about access to mental health services, the present moment in politics holds promise. A federal Liberal government has been elected promising to address mental health access issues, a commitment recently reaffirmed by the Minister of Health. In Ottawa, bettering mental health care is nonpartisan: in the last election, every major political party promised action on improving services (unprecedented in federal campaigns); in the last Parliament, all parties supported a national suicide strategy. Good news is frankly welcome news. The interest is there and the need is great: 1 in 5 Canadians experiences a mental health problem in any given year, and they face a patchwork of care; many Ontarians have their first contact with the mental health system through the emergency room (roughly 1 in 3 with an anxiety disorder), according to a newly released Health Quality Ontario–Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (HQO-ICES) report. Access is problematic—especially if the bar is raised to the standard of access to evidence-based care. Consider recent articles published in this journal: