VANCOUVER – A new threat of cuts to vital mental health services at Vancouver Coastal Health despite the growing need for resources shows the unreasonable pressures health authorities have been under due to the unsustainable Liberal budget, say B.C.’s New Democrats.

“At the same time the health minister claims that talks are underway to address Vancouver’s mental health crisis, we’ve learned that vital psychiatric services at Vancouver Coastal Health are at risk of being cut by half a million dollars,” said New Democrat mental health critic Sue Hammell.

“These cuts are coming at a time when the Vancouver police chief and mayor have declared the situation of severe and untreated mental illness a crisis,” said Hammell. “These cuts show there is a serious human cost to the pressure the Liberal government has put on health authorities.”

This week, a group of doctors at North Vancouver’s Lions Gate Hospital raised the alarm that the hospital’s psychiatric department is at risk of having its budget and staff significantly cut. They noted these cuts would impact some of the Lower Mainland’s most vulnerable citizens.

Hammell noted that in Vancouver, police stations and emergency rooms have increasingly filled the gap in mental health services. She said the Liberal government has been so fixated on balancing its budget that they’ve compromised health care for British Columbians who need it most.

“The Liberal government is more preoccupied with the illusion that they’re doing something than with creating substantive change,” said health critic Judy Darcy. “They spent millions on building a new ER at Surrey Memorial Hospital, yet they failed to invest in actually staffing it. Now at the same time Vancouver Coast Health plans to move mental health services into a multi-million dollar building, we hear staffing positions could be cut – it’s poor leadership and it’s not the way to run a health care system.”

“The Liberals balanced their budget on the backs of our health care system and this is yet another example of how British Columbians are being forced to pay the price,” said Hammell.