Nunavut lawyer decries lack of mental health services for her son

Rankin Inlet like many Nunavut communities has no regular specialized mental health services. (FILE PHOTO)

An Inuk lawyer has left Nunavut for Winnipeg to ensure her son, 15, receives better mental health care—and moving was the only choice to make, says Mandy Sammurtok.

“I left Nunavut because it couldn’t provide my son with what he needed in order to live,” said Sammurtok who, before relocating to Winnipeg, worked as a lawyer.

Last summer Sammurtok’s son was self-harming and had suicidal thoughts, the woman told Nunatsiaq News.

He went to see the school counsellor and the local mental health worker and he was finally sent to Winnipeg and admitted to a youth psychiatric ward for a week, Sammurtok said.

When he went back home, he was supposed to receive a follow-up from the hospital. But the family heard nothing and he was still self-harming and suicidal, she said.

When they finally went to the health centre, they learned that a psychologist wouldn’t be back in the community of roughly 3,000 for another month.

The mental health worker was on call “but it just wasn’t enough for us,” she said.

“I was terrified. I constantly was anxious, and we were told he couldn’t be alone, so if he wasn’t at school, he was being supervised. He was not doing well and we both weren’t sleeping,” she said.

Since moving to Winnipeg late last year, her son has regular access to a counsellor and doctor.

As well her son participates in extra-curricular activities, such as badminton, three times a week, “that help him get everything out.”

“I’ve known since I was a defence lawyer [in Iqaluit] that mental health services were lacking in Nunavut, but looking at this from a personal perspective, it’s just really frustrating,” the woman said. “There are not enough counsellors. The mental health workers try to do the best they can, but they don’t have enough support.”

Mandy said there are significant unmet mental health needs across the territory.

“I would like Nunavut to have had the services. I would still be home,” she said. “It’s really sad that we had to leave home in order to get help for him.”

Nunavut needs to re-evaluate its mental health programs—”and they need to do that quickly because there have been too many suicides.”

Sammurtok also said Nunavut communities need more extracurricular activities for youth besides hockey and soccer, such as those offered through the new aquatic centre in Iqaluit.

“We need to keep people active,” she said.

For now, Sammurtok is living with her mother and watching over her son to make sure he is okay. She is not working.

“You shouldn’t have to chose between the life of your child and your income that helps keep your child safe, and with food, and alive,” she said. “But his life is more important.”

In 2015, a coroner’s inquest said suicide in Nunavut is a public emergency that needs quick action and requires inter-agency cooperation to tackle the territory’s suicide rate, which is 10 times higher than in the rest of Canada.

People who struggle with suicidal thoughts may contact the Kamatsiaqtut help line in Iqaluit at (867) 979-3333 or toll-free at 1(800) 265-3333, from 7 p.m. to midnight.

There’s also the Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Kataujjiqatigiit Embrace Life Council’s website for more information and support, and its toll free line at 1-866-804-2782.