CMA awards Medal of Honour to the Honourable Michael Kirby

An August 11th media release from the Canadian Medical Association:

Ottawa, August 11, 2010 - The Canadian Medical Association (CMA) will present the 2010 CMA Medal of Honour to the Honourable Michael Kirby, who has demonstrated outstanding public commitment to raising awareness of mental health issues and diminishing the stigma and discrimination faced by Canadians living with mental illness.

“The CMA Medal of Honour recognizes personal contributions to advancing medical research and education,” said CMA President Dr. Anne Doig. “Mr. Kirby [pictured] has worked diligently to bring awareness to the mental health issue.”

Mr. Kirby is well known to physicians for his landmark Senate reports on health care reform. Now retired from the Senate of Canada after 22 years of service, Mr. Kirby chairs the Mental Health Commission of Canada where he has demonstrated the same outstanding public commitment – this time, to raising awareness of mental health issues and diminishing the stigma and discrimination faced by Canadians living with mental illness.

“I have been privileged to have worked on major Canadian public policy issues for more than forty years. In that time, nothing has been more gratifying than my work on health care in general and mental health care in particular,” said Mr. Kirby. “I believe that, with the help of all Canadians, it will be possible to substantially reduce the stigma and discrimination faced by people living with a mental illness, and to put in place a system of services and support that will enable them to lead a much more satisfying and productive life.”

Mr. Kirby’s personal interest in health care delivery was evident during his seven-year term (1999–2006) as chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. The committee’s focus was to develop a federal health policy that would support a financially sustainable health care system over the long term.

The committee published six reports on health care, culminating with Recommendations for Reform, in 2002. The report included numerous and varied recommendations: the need for better accountability through an annual report on the health care system and the health status of Canadians; the need for improved efficiency measures, including primary care reform; the need for timely access to health care in the form of health care guarantees; and the need to close gaps in the safety net by expanding coverage for catastrophic drug costs, and acute and palliative home care.

Following publication of the report, the Social Affairs Committee, chaired by then-Senator Kirby, turned its attention to the issue of mental health, mental illness and addiction. The committee published three background reports in 2004 and its final report, Out of the Shadows At Last, was released in 2006. One of the principal recommendations of this report was that the federal, provincial and territorial governments should establish the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

Mr. Kirby retired from the Senate in 2006 and was appointed chair of the newly created Mental Health Commission of Canada in 2007. The commission’s mandate is to develop Canada’s first national mental health strategy and to launch a decade-long, anti-stigma program to change public attitudes and behaviour toward people living with mental illness.

While the goals of the Mental Health Commission are certainly no small challenge, Mr. Kirby has a proven track record of successfully developing and implementing public policy for governments and the private sector. He served as principal assistant to Premier Gerald Regan of Nova Scotia (1970–73), assistant principal secretary to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (1974–76) and president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy (1977–80). While he was Secretary to the Cabinet for Federal-Provincial Relations and Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council (1980–83), he was the senior public servant involved in the negotiations that led to the patriation of the Canadian Constitution and inclusion of the Charter of Rights in the constitution.

He has been a professor at Dalhousie University, has taught at the University of Chicago and University of Kent, has served on the boards of numerous public companies, is a regular media commentator on public policy issues, and is a featured speaker at many national conferences.

In recognition of a lifetime of outstanding achievement on major public policy issues and his current commitment to confronting the challenges related to mental illness, Mr. Kirby was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2008.

The Honourable Michael Kirby is the 27th recipient of the CMA Medal of Honour, the highest award bestowed upon a person who is not a member of the medical profession. He will receive this award at a special ceremony at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, in Niagara Falls, Ont., on Aug. 25 as part of the CMA’s 143rd annual meeting.


For more information:

Lucie Boileau, Manager, Media Relations
Tel.: (613) 731-8610 or 800-663-7336 ext. 1266
Mobile : (613) 447-0866
lucie.boileau@cma.ca

Photo credit

Letter to the Editor ...

... published in today's edition of The Chronicle Herald.

Poor choice of words

I commend the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) for considering mental illness to be a priority for inclusion in the eighth annual National Report Card on Health Care.

This study found that "a majority of Canadians (60 per cent) agree that the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness are underfunded, while a greater majority agrees that funding for mental health issues ought to be on par with funding for physical health issues, like cancer and diabetes (72 per cent)."

Against this backdrop of interesting data, the CMA posted an article on its website which focuses on stigma, including a bullet which states "almost half of Canadians (46 per cent) think the term ‘mental illness’ is used as an excuse for bad behaviour." I find the CMA’s wording of this bullet disturbing because the statement used in the survey was: "We call some things mental illness because it gives some people an excuse for their poor behaviour and personal failings."

Looking at the survey responses to this statement – i.e., 22 per cent completely disagree; 13 per cent somewhat disagree; 15 per cent neither agree nor disagree; 25 per cent somewhat agree; and 21 per cent completely agree – I am led to conclude that the statement was poorly worded and resulted in a random distribution of responses.

Stephen W. Ayer, Executive Director, Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia

Survey shows mental illness now better understood

But more public education still needed

From today's edition of The Chronicle Herald:

By John Gillis, Health Reporter, and The Canadian Press

A new national survey shows Canadians’ attitudes toward mental illness are changing for the better, says the executive director of the Schizophrenia Society of Nova Scotia.

The report, released Monday by the Canadian Medical Association and based on an Ipsos Reid survey, shows 75 per cent of Canadians disagree with the idea that people with mental illnesses could "just snap out of it" if they really wanted to and an overwhelming majority believe mental illness requires treatment by a health professional, said Stephen Ayer.

"What this report says to me is . . . people are becoming educated," he said. "This is good news."

The results also indicate Canadians believe the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses is underfunded and should be on par with funds allotted to diseases like cancer and diabetes.

In 2006-07, Nova Scotia spent less than four per cent of its health budget on mental health.

Mr. Ayer said the report underlines the importance of educating young people about mental illnesses. He said half of people who develop a mental illness begin to have symptoms by age 14.

Medications that help people cope with and recover from mental illness began to appear in the 1960s.

"In the past, it’s always been that if you got a mental illness, you were basically doomed to an asylum," Mr. Ayer said. "But that’s no longer the case. People are starting to recognize that."

A release accompanying the Canadian Medical Association’s eighth annual National Report Card on Health Care focused on some of the more negative attitudes found in the survey, including that 46 per cent of Canadians think some people use the term mental illness as an excuse for bad behaviour.

Mr. Ayer called that question ambiguous, noting the responses were quite evenly spread across the scale used in the national survey.

Only half of those surveyed would tell friends or co-workers that they have a family member suffering from a mental illness. That compares to 72 per cent who would openly discuss a diagnosis of cancer in the family.

"This year’s report card shines a harsh, and frankly unflattering, light on the attitudes we Canadians have concerning mental health," said Dr. Brian Day, president of the Canadian Medical Association.

"In some ways, mental illness is the final frontier of socially acceptable discrimination.

"Can you imagine the public uproar if mental health was replaced with race, gender or religion?"

The survey also found troubling attitudes toward people with drug and alcohol addictions, with less than half of respondents believing addiction is a mental illness.

Only one in five would socialize with someone who has a drug or alcohol addiction and less than five per cent would hire someone who has a drug or alcohol addiction.

"These figures show clearly the insidious stigma still associated with mental health and mental illness," Dr. Day said in a statement released with the report card.

"These are the attitudes that have kept mental health on the outside for far too long."

The mental health results, from an Ipsos Reid online survey of 2,024 Canadian adults, are considered accurate within 2.2 percentage points.

The Canadian Mental Health Association’s national conference begins Friday in Dartmouth.

Dr. David Goldbloom, a Toronto psychiatrist and vice-chairman of the Mental Health Commission of Canada, will give the keynote address called Stigma and Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future.