Tuesday was a day that started just like any other on the Coast. Some of us went to work, some of us didn't. At just after 4 p.m. on that tragic day, it became a Tuesday like no other the Coast has ever seen.
At that time four employees of the Good Samaritan Christenson Village were preparing to move a resident to a new home. The 40-year-old resident, a brain-injured Gulf War veteran, was not going willingly. Just how determined she was to avoid the move became quickly apparent when she levelled a gun at a manager of the care home and allegedly proceeded to shoot.
Those of us blessed with that most amazing of all gifts - hindsight - are busy asking many questions.
Why was the woman in that facility? The short answer to that query is: where else could she be? Places for folks with brain injuries or mental incapacity are few and far between on our Coast. Perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is why mental health takes such a back seat to physical health here. If there's a finger to be pointed, it's at ourselves, for unless the patient is willing and able in many cases to make a huge stink, they often don't get the help they need. And in no way do we mean to slight the folks who work in the mental health field on the Coast. They're a dedicated, professional group with only their clients' needs at heart, but the simple fact of the matter is there are not enough of them. Christenson Village does not have a mental health worker on staff. For a facility that takes care of such a wide range of people, perhaps that's a change that needs to be made.
How was this woman allowed to get guns into the facility? The answer is relatively simple. She was a resident at the care facility, not an inmate. Her comings and goings were, for the most part, not monitored. When she moved in, her belongings were not searched any more than ours would be when we moved into a new home. There were ample opportunities for her to bring firearms home.
Why weren't the RCMP on hand when she was being evicted? Most of us doing a job know what we're doing, and to suggest the employees at Christenson Village don't is a massive insult. The manager knew there would be trouble and that's why there were four people there to deal with the woman. The tragedy is no one could have predicted the extent of the woman's paranoia. We feel for the family of the man grievously injured in the course of his job, and we feel for the family of the sick woman, and we feel for the RCMP member who ended the confrontation with more gunfire.
What our community needs now is not more questions, but a lot more compassion.
