Prince Albert at crossroads with Mobile Crisis Unit

A $43,600 grant was earmarked in Prince Albert’s recently proposed budget.

Mayor Greg Dionne said he understood why the government was trying to streamline the service, but that the city still needed people on hand to deal with gambling addiction.

He mentioned that the Northern Lights Casino is one of the most profitable casinos in the province, making the need all the more crucial.

If someone calls the help line in Regina their call will be transferred to the P.A. Mobile Crisis Unit as soon as they let the operator know they are calling from Prince Albert.

But Dionne says that’s not enough.

“An extra step can sometimes end a call…A guy phones in a help line ‘I live on ninth street here, I lost another $10,000 I’m going to lose my home, I’m going to kill myself…what is someone in Regina going to do?

“Call the mobile crisis here? Go over there? I don’t know how that system is going to work.”

Mobile Crisis Unit executive director Vicki Bird said the funding cut has removed a critical aspect of dealing with gambling addictions on a face-to-face interaction basis.

“That has to happen with gambling,” she said. “It’s child protection, it’s domestic violence, it’s suicide and those are immediate response for a crisis hotline. Those cannot be answered on the phone.”

According to Bird the contract for the Gambling Help Line was extended for two months at the beginning of the year, to give them time to find more funding. “We’ve been able to pick up a couple contracts,” Bird said, “but certainly not to the amount that the gambling line was.”

Even without funding, the Mobile Crisis Unit has continued to deal with gambling addiction calls.

“How do you not respond to a crisis?” Bird rhetorically asked. “When someone calls we can’t say ‘sorry, we lost funding we can’t do that right now.’”

Heather Murray, director of research evaluation and central support with the Community Care Branch and the Ministry of Health, said moving operations to Regina would provide an “enhanced service.”

There is now an online and texting component, which according to Murray will open the help line up to a “different group of people who are more comfortable communicating that way.”

She also said streamlining the process means there are people specifically dedicated to dealing with problem gambling, which wasn’t possible before.

On average, Murray said Regina received just over 33 calls in a month, with Saskatoon fielding 13 calls and only seven in Prince Albert.

“Regina definitely has the capacity to take on the additional calls a month,” Murray said.

Mayor Dionne said he’s going to embark on a “fact-finding mission.” He said during the unofficial budget deliberations that took place on Monday, Nov. 9 that he intended to talk to the provincial government about restoring the funding once budget discussions were finished.

Bird said it was good to know that she and the Mobile Crisis Unit was not alone in their quest for more funding.

-with files from Khang Nguyen

ssterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit

by Spencer Sterritt

Prince Albert at crossroads with Mobile Crisis Unit

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