NEWS RELEASE
PATRICK BROWN, SIMCOE NORTH MPP
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The following is a statement from Simcoe North MPP and Leader of the Official Opposition Patrick Brown on the Auditor General’s audit of Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care:
“The Auditor General’s 2016 Annual Report only further proves the Liberal government’s stunning incompetence in managing our province. This report paints the picture of a tired and negligent government, incapable of successfully providing the most basic services that Ontarians expect and deserve.
“One of the most disgraceful aspects of this report is the Wynne Liberal government’s neglect of those suffering with mental illness.
“Chronic underfunding by the Liberal government has meant our hospitals cannot keep up with increased demand for mental health services. Instead, those that desperately need help sit on waitlists that are getting longer and longer, without support.
“The evidence of 13 years of Liberal neglect can be found in my riding of Simcoe North. While Waypoint Centre for Mental Health provides incredible service to its patients, Liberal mismanagement of our health care system has meant that between 2011/12 and 2015/16, individuals with mental illness and substance abuse issues saw their wait times double.
“Similarly, for a mental health program offered to adults at Waypoint, the waitlist was so long the hospital stopped accepting patients despite individuals seeking care.
“The health network that serves my constituency doesn’t even have dedicated mental health beds for children, meaning that last year 129 children had to travel hours away to seek treatment – some as far as North Bay.
“Those who through no fault of their own are faced with mental health issues deserve so much better. They should get the treatment they need and deserve, not being put on waitlist after waitlist languishing without care.
“The Wynne Liberal’s legacy of cut after cut to our health care services – the direct result of more than a decade of scandal, waste, and mismanagement – is hurting our province’s most vulnerable the most. We should deserve and expect better from our government.”
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