Urgent or Emergency Care
Firstly, if this is an emergency:
- Call 911.
- The best hospital for mental health and Psychiatry is VGH (Vancouver General Hospital).
- More specifically, go to the AAC (Access and Assessment Center) at VGH.
AAC has been recommended to me by a general doctor, a counsellor/therapist, a friend of mine, and a psychiatrist. They will point you in the right direction if that is temporary full-time care, or access to a psychiatrist. They also do assessments.
Ongoing care
The best thing I did was go into the AAC as walk-in. You will have to go over your history with a social worker and they will decide the best route for you. I was able to see a Psychiatrist in a weeks time. Then he asked a lot of similar questions and I had to make it very, very clear I want ongoing help, and now they are giving me access to that.
I tried to go through a GP on Maple and got rejected a few times.
Generally, they prefer you just go to your regular GP to get access to medication. They don’t have enough doctors for the high demand.
A psychiatrist sent me a rejection letter which sucked, but what they provided was helpful for the next steps so sharing here:
Very few community psychiatrists provide ongoing mental health follow up, as due to resource issues we mainly function as consultants. There are some therapy programs that provide short-term skills training or stabilization.
Here are some suggestions:
- Access and Assessment Centre (AAC) (above), located on the grounds of Vancouver General Hospital and open 24/7, with a capacity for self-referral. This is the best option for Vancouver residents requiring psychiatric assessment and recommendations, including medication recommendations and adjustments. They also assess patients for suitability for outpatient group therapies.
- The Mood Disorders Association of BC has several psychiatrist-run time-limited therapy group programs, mostly virtual, available with physician referral (www.mdabc.ca)
- CREST-BO is a bipolar nonprofit comprised of researchers and people with lived experience and provides a lot of psychoeducation and social supports through podcasts, webinars and tools on their website.
Next steps
Find a therapist in Vancouver:
Finding a therapist in Vancouver