Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital, Ontario Shores strike mental health care partnership

Integrated Mood Disorders Clinic aims at serving western York Region residents

Yorkregion.com
Nov. 25, 2021
John Cudmore

Mackenzie Health and a leading mental health care provider are combining to provide local access to specialized services for residents of western York Region.

Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences has initiated a clinic at Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital that provides psychotherapy and interpersonal psychotherapy, in addition to brain stimulation treatment for outpatients with mood and anxiety disorders.

Ontario Shores provides a range of specialized assessment and treatment services for people living with complex mental illness.

Its clinicians will work in partnership with the Mackenzie Health psychiatry and mental health clinical team and will be integrated into its outpatient services.

Currently, York Region residents suffering from treatment-resistant depression must go outside their community to access non-invasive treatment.

With the opening of the Integrated Mood Disorders Clinic at Mackenzie Health, residents will have access to the care they need within their own community.

“This innovative collaboration between Mackenzie Health and Ontario Shores allows us to bring advanced mental health expertise to the patient population served by our community hospitals,” says Altaf Stationwala, president and CEO for Mackenzie Health. “Expanding the mental health services we provide at Mackenzie Health will benefit thousands of patients all across western York Region in the months and years to come.”

The clinic is the first step of a potential long-term collaboration between Mackenzie Health and Ontario Shores directed at addressing current and future needs for psychogeriatric and child and adolescent mental health services.

In a proposal currently with the Ministry of Health, Mackenzie Health and Ontario Shores are proposing to add 25 psychogeriatric beds and 12 child and adolescent beds. The proposal includes enhanced child and adolescent and geriatric outpatient services.