A Vancouver-based psychiatrist is now making regular visits to Williams Lake for appointments and consultations.
Dr. Ashok Krishnamoorthy is a director of Vancouver Community Psychiatric Services with Vancouver Coastal Health and a clinical assistant professor in the University of British Columbia’s department of psychiatry.
“He has a special interest in addictions, brain injury and cognitive disorders with younger people and he also has an interest in geriatric psychiatry and neuropsychiatry,” said Rae Samson, Interior Health’s administrator of mental health services. “I think he will be quite a resource to us and I think he will also build capacity within the mental health services in the GP community as a consultant.”
Krishnamoorthy’s services will also augment those already being offered in the community by child and adolescent psychiatrist Matt Burkey who arrived last year.
Burkey supports the Child Youth Mental Health Collaborative Action Team and is also working on integrated care for children and their family and has recently started to work on building capacity to respond to rural communities in partnership with First Nations.
“He is a tremendous resource to the community, “ Samson said of Burkey’s efforts, noting psychiatrist Dr. Witold Widajewicz will continue to come to Williams Lake for appointments
Samson said Dr. Krishnamoorthy expressed interest in coming to Williams Lake and is being funded through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a program that supports specialists to come up to rural communities.
“It pays for their travel and their time when they are in rural communities,” she said.
“He will have an office at the Mental Health Office on Borland Street and also do some support for the hospital.”
Crisis response team in place
From 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the crisis response team offers support to clients who arrive at the emergency department, families, community members, RCMP and physicians.
“We changed our model of intake services so they have improved access and decreased wait time,” Samson said. “There was a bit of a wait list to get an intake to mental health, but that’s now triaged based on clients that have the most urgent needs.”
Crisis response can work directly for anyone who requires immediate service.
Detox beds are being added to the community and an observation room in the emergency ward is in the final process of being made operational.
“The Gateway program will provide support to initiate psychiatric treatment for anyone that is in the observation room,” Samson added. “The psychiatrists from Royal Inland Hospital are also available for consolation and support to the emergency room staff mental health team.”
Hopefully treatment can be initiated for clients who do not need to be transported to Kamloops to the inpatient unit.
“In the best case scenario we are able to treat them in Williams Lake and if they do need to go to Royal Inland Hospital they can get started on treatment before they leave. We may be able to use Gateway to stabilize patients as well.”
The “big picture” is to operate as one mental health and substance use service across the Thompson-Cariboo.