CALGARY -- Patients inside a Calgary mental health facility are asking for more freedom from Alberta Health Services (AHS) after new restrictions were put in place due to COVID-19.
Some patients at the Peter Lougheed Centre want pandemic changes to be somewhat-reversed to gain more access to programs and life outside the hospital.
Jeanne Ironside, who voluntarily checked herself in to the centre, claims those changes mean she’s missing important steps in her recovery from severe depression.
“It’s just really frustrating because I can’t judge my progress or recovery,” Ironside told CTV News. “In the past, I was able to come into the hospital on treatment days and have passes and have freedom and I was able to enter the community to gauge my recovery that way. But this time around, they’ve just completely locked everyone in the ward.”
Ironside is one of 29 short-term patients inside the centre. She believes the large majority would be allowed off-unit trips under normal circumstances.
18 of them have now signed the petition, which asks for “basic rights such as...day passes, proper exercise and therapeutic groups to be reinstated immediately.”
AHS says it is in the process of resuming some patient privileges that were “temporarily paused to ensure the safety of our mental health patients, other patients receiving care, visitors and staff at the hospital.”
A statement from a spokesperson thanks those impacted for their patience.
Those inside want the changes reversed immediately. Ironside says her days are spent in two small spaces and filled with limited services and doctor visits.
“At the moment, 29 people are being confined to approx 2000 sq. ft of common space, unable to get exercise, fresh air or adequate mental stimulation,” the petition reads.
“(This) is not conducive to our recovery,” Ironside said. “We need to make those bridges between being in the hospital and being out in the community.”
