Community support needed for mentally ill

by Wendy Elliott/The Advertiser

Kim Clark used to live around the corner from me. We had kids at the same schools and I knew she was an interpreter for hearing impaired students. As a neighbour, I hadn’t the slightest notion she was dealing with teenage daughter who was developing schizophrenia.

Today a resident of Metro Halifax, Clark suspects Koral lives on the street or in people’s backyards. She has seen her 25-year-old daughter twice in the past six months.

If she breaks the law, only then can Clark hope to get Koral back on her medication for paranoid schizophrenia.

But that is not easy. As an adult in her mid-20s, Koral is recognized as independent. Yet, Clark is well aware that off her meds, Koral, who also has hearing problems, is not cognitively capable of making decisions.

Clark is hopeful that Koral might someday live at the mental health transition centre under construction in Dartmouth. The four 10-bedroom bungalows at the site of the Nova Scotia Hospital promise transitional housing for those who have been hospitalized. Residents will get care while practicing the life skills they will need to live in the community.

Clark hopes the project can fill a large gap in the mental health system. All too often, the current system leaves people utterly on their own after hospital treatment. Then, they flounder “and the cycle repeats itself,” she adds.

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