Mental illness isn’t a glamorous disease.
Because it isn’t fancy and high tech, Betty Schoenhofer is worried the importance of the disease will get lost at Alberta’s upcoming planning session.
“I feel the importance of mental health will be ignored at the Growth Summit,” said Shoenhofer, chair of the provincial mental health advisory board.
Despite her misgivings, Schoenhofer put together a presentation for a mini growth summit on health in Camrose. The meeting is one in a series of summits held across the province in an attempt to gather grassroots views on where Alberta should be heading in the next century.
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Findings from the mini summits and written submissions will be compiled for the two-day Growth Summit to be held in Edmonton Sept. 29-30. There, delegates and politicians will hash out what should be the province’s priorities in the next century.
Even though the summit will guide how the province manages its purse strings, it is not a “spending summit,” local MLA LeRoy Johnson told the presenters. The mini summits are designed to find sustainable growth ideas.
“The whole emphasis is on the future and where we ought to be going from here,” said Johnson.
“We hope common themes will come through and this can be passed on to the main growth summit.”
Lots of input
With that in mind, a dozen speakers chosen by a local steering committee presented their vision of how their special interest should be included in the larger health picture.
Mike Shea, executive director of St. Mary’s Hospital in Camrose, said the buildings and equipment bought in the prosperous 1970s are wearing out and need to be replaced. At the local hospital, equipment which cost $6 million to buy is now valued at $250,000, four percent of its original value.
Peter Langell, CEO of the Crossroads Regional Health Authority, said they’re looking for a stable, dependable environment from which to plan, following the province’s move to eliminate 200 local health boards and create the 17 regional health authorities.
“The regional health authorities think this is a very important process and have spent a lot of time putting together presentations. All the health authorities know a unified voice is an effective voice,” said Langell.
Merlyn Rix was chosen by the steering committee to represent the “health consumer” at the meeting.
The Wetaskiwin farmer said while it’s good to get together to bounce ideas off each other, the process won’t go far if governments don’t put an emphasis on a caring, nurturing health system.
Donna Hudson worries about the validity of the summit on gathering Albertans views. Of the chosen speakers, only one was to represent the people’s views.
“This is typical. There is only one person chosen to represent the consumer and too many politicians and bureaucrats,” said Hudson of Edmonton.
Schoenhofer isn’t sure her concerns about mental health will make it on the final summit table, but said making a presentation at these events is part of the long process of making people aware of mental illness.
