B.C.’s public safety minister explains what mandatory care ‘secure beds’ will look like

A pre-election promise from B.C.’s NDP government to bring in mandatory treatment for people with severe mental illness and addiction is worrying some advocates who compare involuntary forced care to jail.

The province’s public safety minister insists that is not the case.

“It’s actually going to be handled by mental health professionals,” said Mike Farnworth in a one-on-one interview with CityNews.

“The beds themselves, some of them will be in correctional facilities. One of the first [mandatory care] facilities will be at the Surrey Pretrial Centre. There will be another facility at the Allouette Correctional Centre that is seperated from corrections, as well as the beds being placed in hospitals.”

Farnworth highlights the new hospital nearing completion in Terrace in the central Interior, as an example.

“It will have secure care beds, as will other health-care facilities and hospitals in other parts of the province. We want to make sure the beds are spread throughout the province and they have the mental health professionals who will be delivering the care and the services.”

How will those new beds and units be kept secure to keep patients under involuntary care? Farnworth reiterates healthcare professionals would handle it.

“It means health-care professionals who understand mental health, who understand addictions, who understand brain injuries — those are the people who will be providing the care in secure facilities,” he explained.

“Those kinds of units already exist in many health-care facilities in our province. Coupled with that will be changes to the Mental Health Act to ensure clarity and that there is no ambiguity as to what secure care is or is not.”

On Sunday, Premier David Eby announced the plan to provide involuntary care for people with severe addictions with concurrent disorders.

In a pre-election campaign promise, he said the NDP would make changes in the next legislative session to “provide clarity and ensure that people, including youth, can and should receive care when they are unable to seek it themselves.”

The government has said it will be releasing clarifications on how the Mental Health Act can be used to provide voluntary and forced involuntary care when people have mental illness and brain injury alongside addiction.

–With files from Jack Morse.