24 hour Province-Wide Mental Health Crisis Phone Line:
Tel: (709) 737-4668 Toll-free: 1-888-737-4668
Mobile Crisis Response Team (St. John’s Region) Tel: (709) 737-4668
Website: http://www.easternhealth.ca/WebInWeb.aspx?d=2&id=2375&p=2106
24 hour Walk-in Crisis Service:
Psychiatric Assessment Unit Waterford Hospital Site, Waterford Bridge Road, St. John’s NL
Psychiatric Emergency Service Health Sciences Centre, Emergency Room, St. John’s NL
Website: http://www.easternhealth.ca
Mandate: To support and work with people who identify themselves as being in crisis. Crisis can mean different things to different people. It can include feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed, frustrated, and being unable to cope.
Target Population: Anyone who identifies as being in crisis
Highlight of Programs / Services Offered:
- Mental Health Crisis Line: The Mental Health Crisis Center provides 24 hour telephone based crisis intervention by professionally trained Crisis Interveners. This service is available toll free across Newfoundland and Labrador and is a confidential service. This service is open to anyone in crisis, their caregivers or loved ones. The 24 hour crisis line is also available to health professionals on a consultative basis by phone. Crisis can include but is not limited to:
- Relationships with family or friends
- Addiction Issues
- Financial Difficulties
- School or work stress
- Grief or Loss
- Abuse or Traumatic Events
- Illness
- Mobile Crisis Response Team: The Mobile Crisis Response (MCR) Team is comprised of registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and social workers with significant experience in mental health who travel as a team to assist/intervene with mental health related crisis, directly in a person’s home or community. In addition, MCR are able to accompany other health care providers in clients/patient community visits.
- The MCR Team currently offers services from 11am-7pm, 7 days a week for people who live within 45 minute travel distance from their home or office (St. John’s extending west not further than Holyrood or Bay Bulls and east not further than Portugal Cove, excluding Bell Island).
- MCR is an extension to other emergency mental health services that currently exist in the St. John’s metro area including the Mental Health Crisis Line (Provincial Service), Psychiatric Emergency Service at the Health Sciences Centre and Psychiatric Assessment Unit at the Waterford Hospital; and works closely with other community services as required.
- Gambling Helpline: The Gambling Helpline is a telephone based service providing 24 hour a day by professional staff for individuals who are concerned about their own or another’s gambling.
- Available toll free across Newfoundland and Labrador
- Anonymous and confidential service
- The helpline provides information, basic education regarding gambling problems, crisis intervention, and possible referral to other appropriate support services.
- Psychiatric Assessment Unit (Waterford Hospital): The Psychiatric Assessment Unit (PAU) is a mental health emergency room providing assessment of urgent mental health concerns on a walk-in basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week (no referral required).
- Assessment includes a psychiatric nurse and physician(s) (general practitioners, psychiatric residents, and psychiatrists are on staff in this program).
- This services has three holding beds or crisis stabilization beds that allow staff to monitor patients for a maximum of 23 hours where deemed appropriate. Referral to follow-up services may also be provided as needed.
- Psychiatric Emergency (Health Science Centre): Psychiatric Emergency Services are available in the Emergency Department at the Health Sciences Centre.
- The Emergency Department is staffed on a 24-hour basis by a registered nurse with mental health experience, who is available to see and assess all patients with a mental health problem.
- The department also has access, when the need arises, to a 24-hour on-call coverage by a psychiatrist and psychiatric staff who are currently located at the Psychiatric Assessment Unit at the Waterford.
- Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services: This is a 15 bed unit that utilizes the principles of the Recovery Model to engage clients in an active psychiatric rehabilitation program. People with severe and persistent mental illness may be referred from acute care or forensic services.