Alberta Hospital plans worry Edmonton police commissioner

EDMONTON — An Edmonton police commissioner appears worried that officers will be hard-pressed to deal with the number of mentally ill people who end up on the streets because of bed closures at Alberta Hospital.

Of the approximately 200,000 calls the police department gets each year, Murray Billett said that he estimates one-third are related to mental health.

“It’s not the acutely ill that I’m concerned about, it’s the rest that are going to fall through the cracks. It’s the people that are going to be on the streets.”

The province has announced plans to close 246 mental-health beds at the Alberta Hospital.

Mark Snaterse, Alberta Health Services’ Edmonton executive director of addiction and mental health, told the commission that he understands there is public skepticism about the bed closures. He reassured the commission health services would be careful not to let people fall through the cracks.

“We absolutely will not move someone until we have somewhere to place them,” said Marianne Stewart, vice-president of Alberta Health Services’ Edmonton zone.

Snaterse said acute-care beds at the Alberta Hospital will be moved to other hospitals and geriatric beds will be moved to Covenant Health’s Villa Caritas. However, he also said that there are some beds that will close that need to be moved to places that do not currently exist.

“We realize that a lot of this community capacity needs to be built. We need to create programs and supports that don’t exist,” he said.

In a later interview, Snaterse could not say exactly how many current patients need to be moved to places that haven’t been built yet, nor who would build and pay for the facilities.

In the end, Billett said he still had serious concerns about the reality of the cuts.

“The kinds of cuts we’re looking at doesn’t equal the kind of stuff I’m hearing. Sorry.”

Edmonton Police Association president Tony Simioni, who expressed his concern about the effects of the cuts on the safety of officers, also said Snaterse’s presentation did nothing to allay his concerns.

A small group of union members were also at the commission meeting and left as worried as when they came.

“When they let these people out, is there going to be havoc? You bet there’s going to be havoc,” Alberta Union of Provincial Employees’ member Joanne Spencer said.

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