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OCOP: Hard to retire when you love your job

Psychiatrist fulfilling long-held goal of helping kids
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(Phil Melnychuk/THE NEWS) Dr. Britt Bright is helping out at Youth Wellness Centre.

Dr. Britt Bright is doing a bad job of retiring.

At 72, after 39 years in the psychiatric profession, she’s trying to wind down her practice on Selkirk Avenue, but still finds herself seeing a list of her adult clients, requiring one day a week treatment, while also achieving a goal that she set when she started her practice.

When Bright was trying to establish psychiatric care for adults decades ago in Maple Ridge, she made a promise that before she retired, she’d also ensure the youth would be taken care of, as well.

She started her practice in 1979, and was Maple Ridge’s first and only psychiatrist.

“I’m fulfilling a promise made over 30 years ago to make sure the youth were looked after,” she said. “I love working with all people who are wanting help.

“So basically, the youth portion of my work has been growing at the same time as I’m working on retiring from my private office practice.”

Bright is on the committee that opened the Youth Wellness Centre a few years ago. The centre is now part of the province’s Foundry program and provides one-stop help for kids and teens, with medical or psychological problems.

The theory is, you give kids some counselling early, before small problems become big ones, and they get on their way in life, with less chance of life-limiting, ongoing issues.

Bright works at the centre, now part of the Greg Moore Youth Centre near Haney Place Mall, two days a week. She is one of two psychiatrists at the centre.

There’s no single issue that troubles kids these days, Bright says.

But she has noticed “a massive increase in anxiety and anxiety disorders in youth, which I have never seen before. It’s way up.”

Instances of depression are about the same, “but anxiety, it’s massive.”

Sometimes that can be dealt with by some basic advice or techniques, while other times the degree of anxiety can be much greater, requiring more therapy.

Drugs are also an issue for the younger set.

“They’re using them very carelessly and having psychotic episodes or life-threatening episodes, huge problems,” she says.

When it comes to marijuana, “There’s a difference between use and misuse, and misuse is a huge concern,” Bright says.

“Misuse of marijuana worsens anxiety.”

That can lead to a risk of psychosis in some patients who have a predisposition to that, she adds.

“Misuse. It’s a huge problem. As far as use, that’s another story.”

Bright, along with colleague Dr. Matthew Chow at the Youth Wellness Centre, share the same common sense, everyday approach to the practice.

A diagnosis of mental illness doesn’t mean a lifelong disability. It’s just an opportunity to get a diagnosis, then get help and go on and live a normal life, she adds.

When Bright first arrived in Maple Ridge, after completing her education in Ireland and Canada after leaving her native Norway, psychiatric help was basically non-existent.

To fill the need, she led the campaign to get a psychiatric unit opened in Ridge Meadows Hospital. It took her three attempts to get the provincial dollars to establish a 16-bed in-patient psychiatric unit in 1993.

At one point, that required two weeks of non-stop phoning to Victoria, she recalls.

Those achievements have improved psychiatric care in Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows, but the region has also faced a setback in such services. The closing of the Iron Horse Youth Safe House in 2015, which offered kids a safe place to stay when they were in trouble, was a major setback.

“I’m extremely upset that Iron Horse lost their funding.”

She added that she’s seen “significant and horrible homelessness and what that does to youth.”

Without such a service, homeless kids have no way of getting back on their feet by getting access to basic services.

“There needs to be something like Iron Horse again. There are literally starving youth who are homeless.”

Though she comes from the medical profession, she keeps up with the day-to-day events. She connects with a variety of people from all walks of life and political persuasion. She adopted Roman Catholicism when she was studying in Ireland after leaving her native Norway.

Bright is now a devout Catholic, attending daily mass when possible. Her faith gives her perspective on her profession, but never dictates how she practises.

As well, “The big risk is to not say enough about their lifestyle … that they themselves might know that their lifestyle is a contributing factor to their poor functioning in life.”

Still, she loves helping kids.

“I guess I’m sort of everybody’s grandma.”

While the debate about housing and homelessness continues to divide Maple Ridge, Bright isn’t afraid to weigh in.

People need housing, but not on an anything-goes-basis.

There also has to be support and supervision to ensure people improve and deal with their personal issues and make progress.

Bright said she’s working towards retirement, “but I possibly love my work too much to be able to retire anyways, so I might be continuing for quite some time because I just love seeing people get up on their feet.”