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The inquest into Simon’s death has focused on two areas: to consider new and innovative suicide prevention strategies, and to review a death in which a person used multiple psychiatric resources over a short period of a time, as Simon did.

Demand for mental health treatment has increased in recent years, but resources have not, psychiatrist Dr. Katharine Gillis, head of the department of mental health at The Ottawa Hospital, told the inquest.

“A lot of people will say, ‘I’ve been assessed a lot, but I can’t get ongoing care.’ ”

As it stands in Ottawa, the only option for people in urgent need of mental health treatment is to present in an emergency room. “There is no other way to have treatment initiated on an urgent basis,” she said.

A rapid-access mental health clinic would be helpful to family physicians who have concerns about a patient when the situation is urgent rather than an emergency, she said. Such a clinic would also be helpful to police, who often have first contact with a suicidal person. If the person is co-operative, they might be a good candidate for a rapid-access clinic, Gillis said.

She described a clinic that would be outside the hospital. It would be focused on social work and connecting the patient with resources in the community. Such a clinic would be less busy and possibly less expensive.

A rapid-access clinic has been on the hospital’s wish list for some time. The hospital applied to the Champlain Local Health Integration Network for a rapid-access clinic pilot project, but the project was not funded, said Gillis. The Royal Ottawa Hospital (now the Royal Ottawa Health Care Group) had a short-term stay unit, but it was eliminated about 18 years ago during region-wide hospital restructuring.