Demand for mental health services has surged, pushing some providers to their limits

Mental health providers say demand for their services has surged in the wake of the pandemic, with long wait lists, few affordable options and therapists stretched increasingly thin.

According to a recent poll by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Ontario, a quarter of all people in Ontario were seeking mental health support in February, a huge increase over the nine per cent of respondents who reported seeking help in a similar poll done by the organization two years ago. 

Nearly half of respondents in the February poll reported their mental health worsened since the pandemic began and nearly a quarter reported using higher amounts of cannabis, alcohol and tobacco than before the pandemic. 

What it doesn't capture however is how many people were turned away from a provider, either because of a full roster of patients, or the provider was fully booked that day. Many London, Ont., counselling centres and clinics called by CBC News had pre-recorded messages warning new clients of potentially long wait times and delayed responses to their inquiries.  

Increasing demand

Jordan Thomas, a social worker-therapist and the clinical director of the London Centre for Trauma Therapy, opened her doors in October 2020 as the pandemic was in full swing.

She was quickly inundated with clients looking for support after they couldn't find it elsewhere. 

"The pandemic and the forced isolation and lack of opportunity and fulfilling activities really exasperated a lot their pre-existing conditions," she said.

"What we've seen is a lot of depression, a lot of hopelessness, a lack of vitality, a loss of their sense of optimism about the future."

"There's been a real upswing in people looking for mental health support."

That upswing can also be seen in the number of people calling the CHMA Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services crisis and support line. The service saw a 26 per cent growth in call volumes during the first year of the pandemic, from 39,229 calls during its 2019-20 reporting period to 49,419 calls in 2020-21. 

Crisis line call volumes have surged

Part of the surge can be explained by the strict quarantine guidelines that were imposed at the time. In-person visits to the organization's crisis centre dropped from 3,618, to 2,617 from 2019-20 to 2020-21. 

However, as COVID-19 restrictions eased, people started showing up in-person again at the same levels as before the pandemic, but the calls kept coming. 

There were 51,769 calls to the support line in 2020-21 (a 16 per cent increase over 2019-20) and 22,152 from April to September of 2022, on-track to surpass the year before.

The increase is similar to what is being experienced in hospitals, where there's been a deluge of patients in the wake of the pandemic. Beth Mitchell, the co-executive director of the London, Ont., CMHA Thames Valley Addiction and Mental Health Services said many providers are overwhelmed and their staff continue to work despite increasing risk of burnout. 

Providers pushed to their limits

"How we've operated over the last two years has kind of been in crisis mode," she said. "I think we're just right now coming back into normal, but what is 'normal' going to look like?"

"You can only provide good services if you take care of yourself, so certainly as an employer we try to help people take a break, help them with their schedule, if they're ill, allow them to stay home," she said. 

Mitchell said at first, the pandemic was energizing because it forced providers to find novel ways to help their clients, either through virtual therapy sessions, or delivering hot meals to clients through windows, but as the pandemic wore on amid ever-increasing demand, burnout loomed. 

"If it's relentless, it doesn't matter who you are, what you do or how strong you are, there's a lot of wear and tear on you personally," she said.

Now that the pandemic is mostly over, Mitchell said inflation and the rising cost of living is starting to add to the increasingly lengthy list of factors that are worsening people's mental health. 

"For some people that's hitting them harder than COVID did," she said, adding that while she feels pretty optimistic about the future, things will likely worsen before they start getting better when it comes to the state of the community's mental health. 

"The real impact might take us a little while to see because people are just getting through the day right now," Mitchell said. 

"We're being pretty cautious in our predictions, but we're feeling like [the after-effects of the pandemic are] going to last in the mental health arena a lot longer than just three years."