The Provincial Government is updating the program standards that Health Units are responsible for.
One of the region’s top doctors is Dr. Janet DeMille and she says the current guidelines don’t talk a lot about mental health and its promotion.
“It is in there, it’s not completely absent from our current standard but the Ministry has really strengthened that in this updated standard and has provided some guidance and protocols around mental health promotion. I think that’s a really significant direction that the Ministry has taken.”
DeMille points out that the Ministry of Health has also included more references to First Nation populations which are mostly absent from the current version of the standards.