Restructuring mental health policy in Ontario : Deconstructing the evolving welfare state
By: WIKTOROWICZ, Mary E
.
Material type: 
ArticlePublisher: Toronto : IPAC, Fall 2005Canadian Publique Administration Publique du Canada 48, 3, p. 386-412Abstract: Ontarios mental health sector offers an insightful case study of the welfare state restructuring in which governments have been engaged, having recently undergone turbulent reform involving the divestment, closure or amalgamation of nine psychiatric hospitals and a fifty percent reduction in psychiatric beds. While premised on a shift to community-based care, investment in the community sector has been slow to occur, increasing the risk of off-loading vulnerable members of society to the community without appropriate supports as occurred in previous movements of de-institutionalization. To understand why community sector reforms have not kept pace with institutional downsizing, we analyse the process of health system restructuring to clarify the obstacles contributing to delay. These include successive arms length governance processes with varying basis of authority; an absence of political will to allocate funds to the community and devolve the coordination of care to local networks; and insufficient engagement of the policy community in policy implementation. Finally, complexity - including the cross-jurisdictional nature and coordination of services on which community care relies - remains an important challenge. Not only have such obstacles diminished the pace of reform and led to regional disparities in Ontario, they reflect common barriers to effective reform across most provinces.
Ontarios mental health sector offers an insightful case study of the welfare state restructuring in which governments have been engaged, having recently undergone turbulent reform involving the divestment, closure or amalgamation of nine psychiatric hospitals and a fifty percent reduction in psychiatric beds. While premised on a shift to community-based care, investment in the community sector has been slow to occur, increasing the risk of off-loading vulnerable members of society to the community without appropriate supports as occurred in previous movements of de-institutionalization. To understand why community sector reforms have not kept pace with institutional downsizing, we analyse the process of health system restructuring to clarify the obstacles contributing to delay. These include successive arms length governance processes with varying basis of authority; an absence of political will to allocate funds to the community and devolve the coordination of care to local networks; and insufficient engagement of the policy community in policy implementation. Finally, complexity - including the cross-jurisdictional nature and coordination of services on which community care relies - remains an important challenge. Not only have such obstacles diminished the pace of reform and led to regional disparities in Ontario, they reflect common barriers to effective reform across most provinces.
Click on an image to view it in the image viewer
There are no comments for this item.