Pilot project aims to treat Montreal mental health patients at home, not the ER [Video]

Quebec is hoping to expand on a new model of care for patients in the emergency room experiencing a mental health crisis.

The model has been in place at Notre-Dame Hospital in Montreal for several months, and on Monday, Health and Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant announced a plan to expand the measures to other hospitals.

A “brief intervention team” will now care for patients in crisis who need to be stabilized.

The measure, said Carmant, will free up beds for more severe psychiatric cases.

“They can have 48 to 72 hours in a unit of intensive short intervention, so you can avoid hospitalization,” he said.

The goal is to make hospitalization a last resort.

All patients leaving the hospital receive follow-up care in the community to ensure no one falls through the cracks.

Those who need it can have access to a measure called “psychiatric home hospitalization,” where the patient will be visited at their home by a …