Champion of a life-long crusade

From the September 1st edition of the Globe and Mail:

Michael Kirby long campaigned for a national mental health commission. That's now a reality: His late sister would be proud

By Gloria Galloway

OTTAWA -- For many of her adult years, Elizabeth Kirby battled the demons inside her own brain.

Prolonged bouts of depression had her in and out of psychiatric wards, and anorexia left her fighting the urge to starve herself. At one point, she tried to end her suffering through suicide.

But Ms. Kirby also had several things working for her - a supportive family and a strong advocate in her brother, Michael, who has made mental illness one of his life's causes.

Before Mr. Kirby retired as a Liberal senator last year, he co-authored a report called Out of the Shadows at Last that provided a blueprint for transforming mental-health services in Canada. It recommended, among other things, the creation of a Mental Health Commission of Canada that would reduce the stigma of mental illness, exchange knowledge about the disease and develop a national mental-health strategy.
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That commission is now a reality with the promise of $55-million in federal funds over five years. And Mr. Kirby, its first chair, stood with Prime Minister Stephen Harper in an Ottawa conference room yesterday to announce the names of the first 11 non-governmental members of the board of directors.

Selected from among 500 applicants, most have had some experience - either professional or personal - with the disease. Four have mental illnesses of their own. And several, like Mr. Kirby, have watched as close family members struggled with the problem.

In the end, Elizabeth Kirby's story is one of hope.

While she suffered from depression from the time she was in her mid-20s until her mid-40s, she did recover. "With the right combination of medicine and psychiatric care she was able to lead a normal life," Mr. Kirby said.

She has since died of cancer. But her final years were productive and fulfilling - a dramatic change from the decades when depression dominated her life.

As it usually does, the disease started slowly. But eventually it became apparent that Elizabeth's problems were not ordinary mood swings or just the normal bouts of feeling down that hit everyone from time to time.

"You got periods of frustration when you wanted to say to her because of her depression, 'Just get over it,' " Mr. Kirby said.

But he understood that it was not Elizabeth's fault, that it was a chemical problem that would take the right combination of chemicals to set right.

"So often when you say to people, 'I am depressed,' the reaction you get from family members is 'Oh buck up, get over it, how can you have that bad a life?' " Mr. Kirby said. "The lack of sympathy, and the notion that you should just get stronger and get it done, is a very prevalent feeling."

Then there was the time she tried to kill herself.

"When someone in your family attempts suicide which, thank God, failed, it's a life-altering moment, particularly when it's someone you are that close to," he said.

Elizabeth gradually grew well enough that she could live normally.

"Her mood disorder never went away, but it got terrifically controlled so that she graduated with an undergraduate degree at age 45 and a masters degree two years later," Mr. Kirby said. And, for the last 15 years before her death, she devoted herself to helping others who shared her affliction by running group homes for the mentally ill.

"During the period when she was ill, I was effectively her mental-health advocate. We were virtually like twins. We were less than a year apart and we were so close that I got very interested in the system," Mr. Kirby said.

"I thought she was continually falling through the cracks - until I actually got into the mental-health system in detail and discovered that, what I thought was falling through the cracks was just the way the system was, that there were cracks everywhere. The service that I thought was so abysmal was routine."

So he became, through his Senate position, an advocate for mental-health policy along with his colleague Senator Wilbert Keon. Together they wrote what became the first extensive report into mental illness in Canada.

In introducing the men yesterday, Mr. Harper credited them with laying the groundwork for the commission.

"They made the case for a comprehensive national strategy," he said. "They showed how we can improve the ways we develop and share our knowledge of mental-health issues. They argued, eloquently and passionately, that we must reject once and for all the stigma attached to mental illness, and they proposed that a national mental-health commission be created to pursue all these goals."

As for Mr. Harper's own decision to support their recommendations, Mr. Kirby said he didn't think the Prime Minister needed anyone to tell him that the issue of mental health is important.

"When I talked to him, there was no need to convince him of the need for something to be done," Mr. Kirby said. "There was discussion about was the commission the right mechanism and how would you do it. But the objective of obviously caring about the mental-health issue - you could see from this morning that was a personal comment."

There are many things to do over the coming months and years, Mr. Kirby said. But the first job is to tackle stigmas.

"If somebody has diabetes, they don't have any difficulty saying to someone, 'I am taking insulin for my diabetes.' If someone is depressed, they have huge difficulty saying, 'I am taking medicine to regulate the serotonin in my brain.' "

ON BOARD

The board of the Mental Health Commission, chaired by Michael Kirby, has 11 non-government directors and six government-appointed directors. Several live with a mental illness, or have family members who have been diagnosed. They include:

Joan Edwards Karmazyn: A resident of Grand Bank, Nfld., who lives with a mental illness, Ms. Karmazyn is the president of the Consumers' Health Awareness Network, Newfoundland and Labrador, the vice-president of the board of directors of the National Network for Mental Health, and an executive committee member of the Canadian Coalition of Alternative Mental Resources.

Andy Cox: A resident of Milford Station, N.S., who has bipolar disease, Mr. Cox is employed as a mental-health patient advocate for children and youth at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax and is also a member of various boards and committees, advocating for mental health.

Jeannette Leblanc: A resident of Moncton, N.B., Ms. Leblanc has a child who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is a registered nurse, university professor and a past chair of the community mental health advisory committee to the New Brunswick minister of health.

Tony Boeckh: A resident of Montreal who is a mental-health philanthropist with a mental illness of his own, Mr. Boeckh is president of Boeckh Capital Co. Ltd. and a former CEO and editor-in-chief of BCA Publications.

Chris Summerville: A resident of Winnipeg who lives with his own mental illness as well as that of a family member, Mr. Summerville is the interim CEO of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada as well as the executive director of the Manitoba Schizophrenia Society. He is a certified psychosocial rehabilitation practitioner, an ordained pastor credentialed with the Associated Gospel Churches of Canada, and past chair of both the Manitoba Provincial Advisory Council on Mental Health to the minister of health and the Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health in Manitoba.

Thanks go to Jan H. for bringing this article to my attention.

Photograph of Michael Kirby by Ashley Fraser.