Shepody Healing Centre to address mental health needs with upgrade

Change coming to Dorchester Change is coming to a New Brunswick prison for those not criminally responsible. CTV's Jonathan MacInnis explains.

The government has announced changes coming to a prison facility for the not criminally responsible in Dorchester, N.B.

Dorchester Penitentiary is 140-year-old facility and the second oldest prison in Canada.

The Shepody Healing Centre is a part of the facility that deals with federally incarcerated inmates who have been declared not criminally responsible. Officials say the centre is currently overcrowded and doesn't meet the requirements of staff or patients.

Executive director of the Shepody Healing Centre Julie Bedard says something needs to be done.

“Sometimes in the morning, in our common area where we have 20 inmates on one floor they're pretty much fighting for the television… there's no other place,” Bedard says.

On Friday, the government announced the healing centre will either be replaced or renovated with the goal of providing better mental health services to federal offenders.

Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard Dominic LeBlanc says the plan is to create a Health Centre of Excellence at the prison.

“We think Dorchester and Atlantic Canada has an opportunity to really step up and become nationally a centre where some of the most difficult cases can be treated successfully,” says LeBlanc.

Correctional Service Canada has assembled a group of health experts and Shepody staff to come up with a plan moving forward.

The group plans to study other models across the country and report back to the federal government. Officials say funding for the project will be included in the next federal budget.

“We will have to present whether it's more efficient to retrofit our current facility or to build a stand-alone facility,” says Bedard.

The Health Centre of Excellence will cost millions of dollars, but experts say it will be worth it.

Dr. Louis Theriault says when inmates with mental health issues are treated properly there can be as much as a seven per cent reduction of them being a repeat offender.

“That is significant and if you look at the punitive approach, just to put them in prison and then house them for whatever then the recidivism rate is.... you reverse the figures,” he says.

LeBlanc says he hopes the plan can move forward quickly because the current facility is woefully inadequate.

Officials say work could start as early as 2019.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis.