NDP to reopen Riverview

[Cactusflower]

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[Queen K]

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[hobbyguy]

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That is all a digression from the Riverview discussion. The old Riverview was indeed a forbidding and dreaded place. An old friend got sent there (depression) and they zapped her with electroshock "therapy". I swear they might as well have done a lobotomy. She couldn't function in the workplace anymore, and wound up on welfare.

Part of the whole Riverview/Mental health issue is that we look for quick fixes to long term problems, and we look for "one size fits all" easy solutions. Hasn't worked, and won't work. Institutions like Riverview can be part of a solution, but they can not be a solution in and of themselves.

[Cactusflower]

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[Cactusflower]

*removed*
That is all a digression from the Riverview discussion. The old Riverview was indeed a forbidding and dreaded place. An old friend got sent there (depression) and they zapped her with electroshock "therapy". I swear they might as well have done a lobotomy. She couldn't function in the workplace anymore, and wound up on welfare.

Part of the whole Riverview/Mental health issue is that we look for quick fixes to long term problems, and we look for "one size fits all" easy solutions. Hasn't worked, and won't work. Institutions like Riverview can be part of a solution, but they can not be a solution in and of themselves.

Thanks for a well-thought out comment HG. I'd just like to add that the re-opening of Riverview is a good idea, regardless of whose idea it was. But it's just the beginning of a solution to B.C.'s mental health problems. The point that keeps resonating is that it should never have been closed in the first place. That screwball idea that all the patients could function out in the 'real world' was a huge mistake, and I'm glad somebody finally realized that.

[hobbyguy]

^^ actually there are times when an institution and/or agency becomes so hidebound and so insular to both criticism and innovation that it must be closed.

In the private sector we see that as bankruptcy when a company no longer fulfills its position in the markets, and fails to modernize and innovate. Better options for customers either have emerged or are emerging in those business cases.

Therein lies the problem inherent with many institutions that we have in the entire health care field. They become fossilized in a way of thinking/acting because - that's what they have always done and what innovations they do accept are technological and not systematic.

We see this in microcosm in the entire subject of medical marijuana. For SOME people, it is a good option - yet our healthcare services have been slow to adapt, slow to implement, and generally fairly resistant to the adoption. In many cases it has been dragging the medical services culture "kicking and screaming".

Fundamentally, health care institutions view health care from the perspective that they do a great deal of good. They are correct in that view. However, that tends to fossilize into "our way is the only way". It does so because most of the measures that our health care system are based on what the system itself produces. It becomes a self reinforcing feedback loop. Plus where there is a failure, such as the ongoing care of chronically ill patients, the institutions tend to try to bring that into their field of endeavor - whether that is the most appropriate response or not - they become "turf protectors".

In context the "old" Riverview had to closed. The efforts to replace the services have evolved but part of the services provided by the "old" Riverview could not be replaced. So now we have a smaller "new" Riverview being built. That's a good thing.

I am extremely leery of rebuilding Riverview as a large institution. Large institutions, like large corporations, can become very inflexible very quickly. Especially public institutions that are hard to "shake up".

IF we are going to expand the services of the "new" Riverview, then I believe it would better serve the needs of the public if similar smaller institutions were built elsewhere ... say one in Nanaimo, one in Prince George, one in Terrace etc.

[maryjane48]

new mental health facility on the historic Riverview lands in Coquitlam, B.C. will open in 2019, replacing the aging Burnaby Centre for Mental Health and Addiction.

B.C. Premier John Horgan took part in the ceremonial groundbreaking on Wednesday, declaring that the project exemplifies the provincial government's commitment to mental health and addictions treatment as the province grapples with an opioid crisis.


http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/brit ... -1.4408515

[hobbyguy]

^^ No it doesn't MJ.

Horgan showed up trying to take credit for a facility the previous government planned and budgeted for. His grin went south when got caught out on it too.