A growing number of people in Alberta are facing having to cope with mental health issues more and more. The most often prescribed treatment by doctors for conditions such as anxiety and depression is psychotherapy or psychological counselling. This can be in conjunction with medication.
If you do not have access to private insurance, the wait time for a therapist is excessive, and patients suffer. Even if you do have additional insurance coverage for individual therapy, sessions are limited and there is often a fee required of the patient.
Therapy can be life saving to people in a mental health crisis and has been proven to play a significant role in a patients recovery and prevents ongoing relapses. Would we deny a cancer patient access to life saving chemotherapy? Alberta Health Services must lead Canada in being the first to publicly fund all psychological services under its legislation.
