Trillium In The News

The Mississauga News

Serving community from Trillium Hospitals for 20 years ReLinC continues helping patients rejoin society

MIKE BEGGS
Mar 12, 2003

It was the nation's first outpatient system to service the chronically mentally ill.
For 20 years now, Trillium Hospital's ReLinC (Mental Health Rehabilitation for Living in the Community) program has offered a community-based management service for Mississaugans aged 16 and up suffering from such long-term conditions as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, and depression.

ReLinC Services Mississauga was launched in December of 1982 (when Trillium was known as Mississauga Hospital) in response to the deinstitutional movement of the province's psychiatric hospitals, which in turn jammed up emergency and inpatient psychiatric units at community hospitals.

"We were getting really ill people into the psychiatric wards. Dr. Ernie Brown (chief of psychiatry at the time) recognized they needed outpatient care, and follow-up," says long-time ReLinC case manager Mary Michalak.

All ReLinC clients are referred by mental health professionals. Case managers visit them once a week on average out in the community, at their homes, or elsewhere.

"We've met with people who lived in a park. We'll go to the Mavis Rd. shelter, wherever they are," says Sandy Traynor, ReLinC clinical leader/case manager.

"Our clients run the gamut from people able to hold down a job, to people who can't even get out of bed in the morning."

A good percentage of them suffer from the hallucinations (including other voices) that come with schizophrenia. Some of them require long-term medication, or psychological follow-up.

ReLinC works with them to obtain the skills, and community support they need to improve their quality of life.

It's the case manager's job to build a therapeutic relationship, develop a rehabilitation plan, and act as a liaison with family and friends.

On a more practical level that can mean helping them with banking and grocery shopping, or accompanying them to a doctor's appointment or to court.

Michalak stresses that ReLinC is set up as a partnership program, under which, "the client directs us what to do, and we help them to reach their goals.

"The longer I work in this business, the more impressed I am by these individuals suffering from psychotic illness -- their willingness, and effort in getting out in the community and contributing," she comments.

"I see them as real heroes. They have to work harder at everything than anyone else. They've got so many social barriers -- like a lack of money."

While most clients show improvement over time, some have been acutely ill for decades before arriving at ReLinC's door. Michalak stresses that this is a chronic condition, like diabetes. As such, instilling hope in them is a big step forward.

"Sometimes the illness is really, really strong. They're in bed, and they hear the (other) voices," she continues.

"There's a lot of healing that has to go on before you can motivate them to do something."

And with an estimated one in 100 people in our society having a serious mental illness, "there's a greater need than this service can provide.

"The need is just huge out there," Michalak says. "We see them out there going through the malls, just trying to get through the day."

"There are probably thousands of people in Mississauga who could benefit from our service -- and we have the capacity to serve 140," Traynor adds.
 

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