At CAMH - In my Role as a Client Surveyor - and a Case for Peer Support
The perspectives of clients are captured in the annual OPOC survey across Ontario - The Ontario Perception of Care in all of hospitals across Ontario. I am privileged to be in that role at CAMH for a second year. The privilege comes from working for a world class hospital where the emotional intelligence of staff and leadership is a part of the work - no ranting managers here! But with it comes my own perspective, speaking with patients in every unit - hearing the stories that staff in their five or ten minutes of interactions do not have.
An eighteen year old in the emergency taken in by police was one. The lack of social supports, leaving home at 5:30 a.m. and waking up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for the long drive from rural Ontario to school - what the police didn’t know when he wouldn’t get out of his car was that he is made fun of when he is late to arrive for 8 a.m. - a sensitive young man, and a good family who has taught him to care about others in the emergency, but their smell and their sickness are making him feel much worse, and fear there - and he wants to go home, but is being held for 72 hours for assessment in this environment that he can’t leave. His good family is not there for him because of his drinking and marijuana habits.
He hasn’t told anyone but me yet about being alone with someone who said he can “kill anyone just like that” - a bully in a shared car he is alone with. By now, his own car, parked somewhere when the officers brought him in has been towed. The boy says he wants social supports because his family has cut him off financially, and tells me this as a Surveyor, because he says “I look so calm, and he feels he can talk to me and open up”. 72 hours in the emergency at 250 College - with White Alarms, Lock Downs, Police bringing in stretchers with handcuffs. A long stay in this bleak environment with one t.v. on mute as activities during the bright day outside.
Another patient - one who I met last year this time in an inpatient unit, tells me she comes from another City and can’t maintain her visits to CAMH. There are no supports out there like CAMH and the nurses are relying on her to use the tools she knows while waiting the same long 72 hours for assessment. She says she is just watching the clock and will go home if they don’t have a bed upstairs for her - “I can’t do another night here”, “people are in distress, they yell, they throw things” “someone was sitting on the end of my bed and startled me because Staff can’t be watching every second.” She says it would be good if there were a Peer Supporter here. Someone to talk with.
The need for Peer Supporters, someone to listen and talk with is a very evident need in our emergency departments, especially ones like CAMH, where Patients are in mental distress upon arrival, and may be re-traumatized while they wait. We are able, as trained in the role of support, to be the one person to relieve the anxiety and fear by listening, sharing our story of being there and showing the road ahead to wellness by our own recovery, while they wait. The above accurately describes what it is like in even our very best hospital where staff work at accelerated pace to assess and begin the healing process, though the details have been changed for confidentiality. It is re-traumatizing and unnecessary while Peers can and will soon, make all the difference in care for the most vulnerable.
If you are interested in Pre-Peer Support training to learn more about yourself and how you can others like those above, please contact Mentor/Mentee Canada through this website or at elizabeth@mentormenteecanada.com.