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Dr. Gabrielle Ledger says adolescent program is 30 years out of date.
Whitby (12 Jan. 2011) - Changes to the adolescent program at the Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences are 30 years out of date says Dr. Gabrielle Ledger, a Bowmanville psychiatrist who quit her job at the psychiatric institution last month.
In a public letter, Ledger says she left her job at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences as a direct result of changes being implemented there.
In December the centre issued layoff notices to about half of its child and youth workers as part of a merger of the short-stay and long-stay adolescent programs. The long-stay adolescent residential rehabilitation program has successfully worked with youths from across the province who have had between three and seven prior hospitalizations.
“In my opinion, this proposed change reflects the hospital’s attempt to apply an adult model of mental health services to a non-adult population,” Ledger writes. “This is a significant step backwards towards a model that is thirty years out of date.”
Ontario Shores plans on replacing about 20 child and youth workers with nursing staff providing a very different model of care.
Ledger says the adolescent programs at Ontario Shores are staffed by an experienced team of professionals who have collaborated for more than 25 years.
“Unfortunately, the recent decision made by the administrators of this newly divested hospital suggests that they may be unaware of the history of the programs and the careful evolution that occurred before their tenure at Ontario Shores,” she says.
Ledger is not the first health professional to speak about the move.
Dr. Krista Lemke, medical director of child and adolescent mental health services at the Toronto East General Hospital, said in a December letter that while nursing staff are equally essential team members and contribute their own unique skills, they often require additional training in child and adolescent mental health.
“From a human resources perspective, this was a well-functioning team, capable of providing high quality care to a particularly vulnerable population of adolescents. It saddens me greatly to hear that this unique team no longer seems to be valued and may be largely disbanded,” Lemke wrote.
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