Andrea White and Mad Pride on the Rock have been working on an alternative to the usual mental health hospital/institutions. [Can “asylum” be reclaimed? Maybe a super space, super chill space, simple refuge, simple safe home?]
There’s a gap in our mental health services. I have an idea that can work
· for CBC N.L. ·
Image Andrea White in front of Waterford Hospital in Newfoundland – photo credit – (John Gushue/CBC)
I have had my own moments of radicalization — seeing desperate folks trying to get admitted to psychiatric beds because they are suicidal, only to be turned away because they do not meet some secret criteria, or simply because there is never any room at the inn.
Increasingly, distressed folks are ending up in conflict with the law — they or a concerned loved one call the police in desperation.
…All the committees, awareness campaigns, official reports, ribbons and wristbands produced over the last 30 years did not help them.
I want to build an asylum. A real one
…Not an archaic red brick building like the Waterford Hospital, with all the trappings of a Victorian mental hospital. We have that….
Our community needs an asylum in the original sense of the word.
A refuge. A sanctuary.
A more simple place. A safe place for folks in pain, distress, confusion and those feeling overwhelmed by their circumstances.
A safe place. Designed and run by folks who have been or are mental health service users. A place that would divert people from hospital emergency rooms, police contact — and create a minimum disruption in a person’s life.
A place where a person could retreat for a few days in a home-like atmosphere. A place without locked doors. A place that is welcoming to all people, and draws on their strengths and abilities.
A place that provides a holistic, non-judgmental, empathic and respectful service to anyone who needs it.
A place to breathe.
Sound Times is staffed and run by consumer/survivors with lived experience of mental health issues.