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Newsroom
Trillium In The News
The Mississauga News
Serving community from Trillium Hospitals for 20 years ReLinC continues helping patients rejoin society
By 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
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
"Our clients run the gamut from people able to hold down a job, to people who "
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
"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 "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 -- "
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
"There's a lot of healing that has to go on before "
And with an estimated one in 100 people in our society having a serious mental illness, "there's a greater need than
"The need is just huge out there," Michalak says. "We see them out there going through the malls, just trying to "
"There are probably thousands of
people in Mississauga who could benefit from our service
-- and we have the capacity
to serve 140," Traynor adds.