As is the case everywhere in the province, Estrie has insufficient mental health resources such that a young adult struggling with a psychotic disorder and substance use problem finds himself on the streets for a week for lack of resources.
Faced with anonymity, the mother of the 19-year-old man let out a cry from the heart on the airwaves of TVA Nouvelles on Tuesday.
He was discharged last week after spending a year in the psychiatric ward at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital in Sherbrooke. However, no hosting resource could support this.
You should know that in January 2022, the young man threatened his mother with a knife. After these events, the court issued a doctor’s permit, thereby enforcing his placement in the psychiatric ward.
No member of the young man’s family was informed of his leave. In fact, the treating psychiatrist could not notify his mother without the patient’s consent. If he had done that, he would have broken professional secrecy, explained Patrick Martin-Ménard, a lawyer specializing in medical liability and forensic psychiatry.
Despite the diagnosis of a severe psychotic disorder with multiple decompensations aggravated by amphetamine use and the risk of developing schizophrenia, the hospital should not be used as a prison. That’s why we let him out last week. Unfortunately, the staff in charge of his case could not find a place for him in accommodation.
His mother, unable to take him in, is heartbroken to learn that her son is roaming the city streets and taking drugs again. His fears are also greater than a few weeks ago, the doctors would have confirmed that he was still showing symptoms of psychosis.
Unless the young man is re-arrested by the police and deemed a threat to his own safety and that of others, it will be difficult to obtain a new extended directive.