[Redacted letter from affected patient], Note: Redacted for confidentiality

January 24, 2012

Carl Amrhein, Provost and VP Academic; University of Alberta Provost's Office

Dear Carl,

RE: Negative impacts due to the disruption of psychiatry services at the Student Health Centre, U of A.

Apparently the decision-makers do not understand the results of change on patients with mental illness. Since not being an expert in the specialty of Psychiatry all that can be said is my own experience with the mismanagement of the changes....

During late July to September 2010 [2011], I left several messages over many days, actually weeks, to the number 780-492-5220. I was getting concerned with no return calls and not being able to talk to a human. I felt unimportant and again my self-esteem plummeted and my anxiety level rose dramatically. Thoughts of suicide surfaced. Why wasn’t anybody calling back? I became very worried about the lack of contact, fearing I would be in a similar situation without a doctor. My psychiatric symptoms soared out of control....

To my understanding, Dr. Hugie recently received an extremely abrupt notice to end her practice at the U of A. Thus so did her patients. Wow, what about her patients? How heartless and incompetent could the decision-makers be? The change was announced immediately following the Christmas break, which is a difficult time in itself. The timing could not have been worse for me; amongst a family emergency. The notice of the sudden change was very disturbing to me. I reacted dramatically and violently by vomiting several times. What was I to do? How was I to cope? Who could help me? What would happen to my file? Who would have access to my information? Could I get the file transferred to a different office? Lots of these unknowns have created immense stress in my life and still do. My anxiety has escalated to the level of panic attacks. I could not stop my mind from racing, along with my heart. I just couldn’t go and see a different doctor. My patient-doctor relationship with Dr. Hugie is a vital part of the maintenance of my mental well-being. ...

Hopefully this letter specified the negative consequences of unreasonable and deplorable decisions regarding the clinics’ psychiatric patients, or at least myself. A written response would be appreciated but I doubt there is any concern for one upset patient.

Sincerely, 

PPPPPP

Cc: Dr. Tammy Hugie

Notes- added July 29, 2018 by T Hugie

This person’s mistake regarding date of messaging problem (2010 instead of 2011) emphasizes level of distress. 

This person was a high-functioning married professional raising young children.

My sudden departure from University of Alberta (UofA) Addiction and Mental Health (AMH) services resulted from my hesitation to immediately sign a new contract management presented exactly ‘as is’. I requested minor change, a different Privacy Officer than specified. The Privacy Officer specified in presented contract was a manager who played major role in debacle of transferring U of A Psychiatry services from University Health Centre to Student Counselling. This manager failed to address problems in a timely manner, instead lying and shifting blame. I had no confidence in this person ethics or competence, so asked for a different person to be Privacy Officer. The very next day after being presented with new contract and requesting alternative Privacy officer, I was told my previous contact was being terminated and I would be given absolute minimally-allowed time to leave. There was no allowance for time that University was closed for holiday season, thus utterly failing to allow for time to say proper good-byes or provide responsible transfer of care. University management had expressed disapproval of my continuing to bring up problems with psychiatrists not reliably receiving urgent patient messages for over 8-weeks. University management took out their frustration with me on high-risk addiction and mental health patients at a particularlydifficult time of the year. Given the situation with new management, I already had plans to leave at the end of the school semester when my departure would be less stressful for most of my patients.

Rachel Notley (in role of MLA Edmonton-Strathcona) was made aware of this University of Alberta Addictions and Mental Health service debacle in 2012 and was specifically made aware of the role Carl Amrhein played in creation of this debacle and his failure to respond effectively to the very serious problems that ensued.