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Seattle University Collaborative Projects - International Academy of ...

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36. A Critical Exploration <strong>of</strong> Pressing Ethical, Clinical & SpiritualIssues in Acute Psychiatry through to Community Care inCanadaWho Gets What? Inequities in Acute Mental Health Care in CanadaKen Balderson, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Toronto (baldersonk@smh.ca)Resource limitations have been a problem in mental health care even before the unkept promisethat deinstitutionalization would be accompanied by appropriate funding <strong>of</strong> community-basedservices. Financial pressures on governments leading to decreased health care funding are nowexacerbating these problems. Fewer beds and pressures for decreased length-<strong>of</strong>-stay have led tochronic backups <strong>of</strong> patients in Emergency Departments. Whether a patient is admitted to hospitalmay not always depend on clinical need, and <strong>of</strong>ten depends on bed flow pressures. Wheninpatient units are full, psychiatric emergency staff may be forced to develop suboptimaldispositions, making discharge plans to relieve ED congestion. A lack <strong>of</strong> standardization in careprovided to admitted patients may also result in differences/inequities in care received.Psychiatry lags behind other medical specialties in Canada in the standardization <strong>of</strong> treatmentprovided in acute care settings. This paper examines approaches used in other jurisdictions whichmay lead to increased standardization and improve acute mental health care delivery in Canada.Challenges <strong>of</strong> Providing Informed Consent in Emergency PsychiatryRosalind Abdool, <strong>University</strong> <strong>of</strong> Waterloo (rabdool@uwaterloo.ca)In contemporary bioethics, the principle <strong>of</strong> autonomy is <strong>of</strong>ten at the forefront <strong>of</strong> decisionmaking.However, there are many psychological limitations and external pressures that makeproviding informed consent a significant challenge. In addition, these limitations and externalinfluences are amplified in emergency situations, where the pressure to make decisions increasessignificantly and there are reduced resources, such as time and the accessibility <strong>of</strong> familymembers, available to patients to employ regular reflective and deliberative abilities. Mypresentation aims to explore two pressing questions relating to this topic: What additionalchallenges are present in emergency medicine/psychiatry that make providing informed consentparticularly challenging in this context? What measures can be taken to improve respect forautonomy and to facilitate providing informed consent in emergency psychiatry.Can Emergency Psychiatry be Person-Centred?91

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