SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Nichol Pidborochynski's relative lives on the streets with a mental illness that, when off medication, puts himself and those around him in danger.
The family, police and hospital staff know the risk, Pidborochynski says, and they know the signs of him crashing.
But under the current Mental Health Act, medical staff cannot intervene until it's too late, she said.
Pidborochynski chose not to disclose her relative's name or their relationship for his privacy.
"He's had a mental illness for at least eight years. Doctors have a few different ideas of what it could be but in the end of it all, he is paranoid, he is delusional and he can be unintentionally violent at times because he doesn't know what is real," says Pidborochynski.
"He has fallen through a lot of cracks because when he is not having an episode and on his medication, he's well enough for the most part to stay alive. By alive, I mean he still has no place to go, no way to get food and no real help in that area."
Pidborochynski lauded the support RCMP have offered to her family but she admitted even its reach is limited.
"They'll pick him up on a second's notice if we say he's going to hurt himself or someone else," she said.
"They'll pick him up and take him to the hospital. When they take him to the hospital the doctors and nurses' hands are tied because he says 'No, I'm not going to kill myself, I'm not going to hurt anybody', and he's back out on the street."
Despite medical staff's interest in helping, Pidborochynski says she's seen him discharged within two hours of entering.
By removing one word from the Mental Health Act written in 1988, Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins says some resolution could be offered to people like Pidborochynski.
The proposed amendment would see the word "imminent" removed from legislation. In the act, the power to require psychiatric assessment, detention of a patient or the admittance of a patient without their consent relies on the immediacy of a threat to themselves or others.
By removing that word, Hawkins - with written endorsement from a Yellowknife psychiatrist who would not disclose his name - says doctors could intervene with patients that have a known history and a pattern of violence when off their medication.
This makes a difference Pidborochynski says would be life-changing.
"The hospital knows him, the RCMP know him, they can see what level he's at," she said.
"They see him on a day-to-day basis, they see when he's doing good, when he's in the middle and when he's about to crash. Just by taking that word out gives all the helpers around him the ability to say, 'We know this person, this is his pattern, please don't make us wait another day, please let us help him now.'"
Hawkins says the legislated change would not impact those who have no documented history of mental illness.
The Department of Health and Social Services is in the process of overhauling the Mental Health Act, but the legislation won't be made public until later this year. From there it will go through committees and public consultations and will not become law until months after it passes assembly. The department would not confirm whether the word 'imminent' would be used in the new mental health act because it's still being written.
By amending the current act, Hawkins believes health authorities could be working under improved protocols within months.
He didn't get the support he had hoped for from his colleagues in first and second reading to the amendment during this past sitting of the legislative assembly, so Hawkins has tabled the document to make it public.
He hopes to bring it forward again in the spring.
"The fact is this is a change that could be implemented in short order, I don't want to use the word immediately - it would take a number of weeks," said Hawkins.
"If it passed first and second reading it goes to committee and committee can decided within 120 days how to deal with it, so they could deal with it right away ... if we save one life because of this we've diverted a tragedy. It's so important that this little change can have an amazing effect."
Abernethy hopes to have the new Mental Health Act ready for the May-June session, or fall at the very latest.
"We're working with the Department of Justice who has agreed to commit a lawyer to the project which will greatly increase the likelihood that we will complete this fulsome legislation for the May-June sitting," he said.
One of his concerns with Hawkins' proposed amendment is that it ties up the same staff dedicated to writing the new act.
"Something that might or may or could possibly ... help somebody, is stopping something that's going to help people - every person who is suffering from a mental health illness," said Abernethy.
"(That) is problematic."
Until the new act is put into place the current act that has since had minor amendments is still being followed.
"The way the law is written, you have to do harm to others, break the law or harm yourself," Hawkins said.
"There is that middle area where we know when you stop taking medication it's going to lead to these types of things. This takes away that 'imminent' and all of a sudden it now changes the dynamics."
However, Abernethy said where imminence has been removed from legislation, there is still a need to prove the concept of immediate threat before detention can be ordered.
Both Ontario and Alberta have removed the term imminent from their respective mental health acts - though Abernethy emphasizes that in both cases they are working with much more contemporary acts than what the NWT is currently governed by.
"Both of those are modern legislation with additional tools that allow practitioners to do different things and offer different supports," said Abernethy.
"You can't do that with the legislation we have because it's so old, outdated and antiquated that it's not meeting the needs. Removing one word that is about timing for a very small group of people isn't going to change anything."
