Horwath visits St. Thomas outreach centre, touts mental health plan

Provincial NDP Leader Andrea Horwath visited St. Thomas Tuesday, touting her party’s plan to shore up mental health services.

The election style stop found Horwath taking an impromptu tour of The Nameless, a street level outreach centre in St. Thomas’s downtown.

Amanda Zielinski, a front line health care worker who volunteers at The Nameless, told Horwath they serve between 60 and 90 people every evening who need help, whether it be a meal, a pair of socks or just a friend.

“We take people who are under the influences of substances, who are in mental health crisis, who are just having a good day or a bad day. We take them as they are,” she says.

Before visiting The Nameless, Horwath spoke at the Central Community Health Centre, where she said her party would invest $1.15-billion per year into mental health care.

She said under the NDP plan, people would have more access to care because services like counselling and therapy would be covered by OHIP.

“People ending up in the emergency room seeking out mental health crisis support. We have paramedics going to crisis situations because people aren’t getting the mental health services that they need to avoid crisis. We know that police are being called to incidences and occurrences where people are in mental health crisis,” she says.

Those on the front lines of mental health care and outreach services are hoping the upcoming provincial election shines a light on the gap in mental health care.

Leticia Mizon, the president and founder of The Nameless, says organizations like hers need help so they can continue helping those in need.

“You need to have someone who is sitting with you in the dirt, because sometimes mental health can be not the most pleasant,” Mizon says.