New Brunswick mental health crisis care response services is seeing a budget increase of $1.9 million, after the province spent $7 million last year to increase services.
Piper Daken lost her 16-year-old sister, Lexi, to suicide in 2021 — her death sparked a review of mental health care in the province.
“I think that only increasing the budget by like $1.9 million, I think it was kind of disheartening to see,” said Daken. “I think that when forming a budget, that it’s an excellent opportunity for our leaders to show us New Brunswickers that they really care.”
This year’s budget allocates more than $3.2 billion to the health-care system.
But Green Party MLA Megan Mitton says the portion dedicated to mental health care is insufficient.
“There needs to be more funding in mental health. It needs to be a bigger portion of health care, we need to stop treating mental health as if it’s separate from health,” said Mitton.
The $1.9 million to expand mental health crisis care response services, brings New Brunswick’s total budget for addiction services and mental health to $174 million.
“For me, it’s never about the money we spend,” said New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs. “But the results we achieve, and that same thing applies in mental health which we have a significant expenditure.”
But some representatives and advocates want to see a report on those results.
“It doesn’t look like that much progress has been made, and what I would really like to see is a clear update,” said Mitton.
“A little report card that shows us what has been achieved and where things are, where things are with the walk in clinics, how many have been opened.”
According to the government, to address healthcare deficiencies overall, the province has set aside $38 million of the budget to make health care more, as they put it, citizen-focused, accessible, accountable, inclusive and service-oriented.
“I thought we were doing better, I thought we were making progress but I’m not seeing that now,” said Daken.