Thème : Policies and key issues

New Brunswick is facing a wellness crisis. As its population’s rates of obesity, inactivity and smoking were steadily rising, the Government of New Brunswick created the Department of Wellness, Culture and Sport in 2006 to help build a culture of well-being in the province.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada (MHCC) is taking concerted action to transform the Canadian mental health landscape.

The Commission was created in 2007 following the most extensive consultations on mental health and mental illness ever conducted in Canada, during which thousands of people from coast to coast voiced their desire for a better mental health system.

Until the 1960s, the majority of mental health problems were treated in mental hospitals. Operating essentially as a daycare service, they often took in several thousand “patients”, and offered very little in structured treatments. However, things changed very quickly as a result of several factors: the introduction of antipsychotics, the development of medical specialization programs in psychiatry and, above all, patients’ criticisms regarding their living conditions in these hospitals.

Recent Canadian studies have shown that education, income and the cost of services are factors in the use of specialty providers of psychotherapy such as psychologists in primary care. Also, health policies should focus on rendering these services more accessible to disadvantaged individuals. To date, the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia have participated in the introduction of publicly funded psychological therapies.