Shepody Healing Centre changes worry victim's family

A family member of an elderly Minto couple killed by Gregory Despres says she's worried about pending changes at the Atlantic regional treatment centre for mentally ill prisoners that could see Despres transferred.

​Despres is currently housed in a psychiatric ward at the Shepody Healing Centre in Dorchester, but the Correctional Service of Canada is changing its mental health care model and sources say acute care beds, like Despres's, will be moved out of Atlantic Canada.

Despres, who was declared not criminally responsible for the 2005 stabbing deaths of Fred Fulton, 74, and his wife Verna Decarie, 70, due to mental illness, has periodic mental health assessments in front of a review board in Moncton.

Fulton's niece, Brenda Case, says she and her family members have made it a point to attend all of them.

But if Despres is moved out of the province, it will be difficult, she said.

"My mother is, she's 74 years old, and I mean, she has attended every one of the hearings. But for her to go to Quebec, it would just be out of the question.

"I mean, number one, she has arthritis so bad that she can barely sit most days, and for her to travel that far, she wouldn't be able to do it."

Still, Case says she will continue to attend hearings for Despres, regardless of where they are held.

"I will go no matter what because I made a promise to my mother that I would be there and … if there comes a time when she cannot be there, I'll make sure I'm there — and I always will be," she said.

"We couldn't be there for Papa and Verna when Gregory was taking their lives, but we can be there for them now and be their voice after they're gone."​

Despres is scheduled to have his next assessment this spring, said Case.

Shepody to provide intermediate-level care

Last week, Jack Harris, the NDP MP for St. John's East, N.L., said staff at the Shepody Healing Centre in Dorchester had been notified the 50-bed facility, which currently has 45 beds occupied, is slated to close on April 1.

"We are told that current and future inmates with severe mental illness will be transferred to Archambault near Quebec City where 100 of 119 beds are already occupied," he said during Question Period.

But a Correctional Service Canada spokesperson says the Shepody Healing Centre is not closing.

"The level of care provided within the Shepody Healing Centre will be different," however, according to an emailed statement from Sara Parkes.

"Shepody Healing Centre will remain a treatment centre, its primary responsibility will be to provide high-intensity intermediate-level mental health care services to inmates," by teams of mental health professionals, such as psychiatrists, nurses, psychologists, social workers, and occupational therapists, Parkes said.

"CSC will continue to provide 24-hour psychiatric hospital level care (in-patient care) to those inmates that require it. For the Atlantic region, this may require inmate movement to another facility," she said without elaborating.

The creation of intermediate mental health care beds will increase the overall number of mental health beds in the Atlantic region to 83, from 48, Parkes added.

Two CSC employees, speaking anonymously last week, told CBC News around the clock health care will no longer be offered at the Shepody Healing Centre, and that the most serious cases will be treated elsewhere, likely in Quebec or in hospitals.

No CSC staff, appointed for an indefinite period, will lose their jobs, said Parkes.

"CSC staff working at Shepody Healing Centre, in the Health Care unit at Atlantic Institution, and in Health Services at Atlantic Regional Headquarters will experience a transition period."

The Shepody Healing Centre, which shares property with Dorchester Penitentiary, is a multi-level security facility for male offenders.

It provides in-patient, out-patient emergency and consultative services to other facilities in the Atlantic Region.

The centre, open since 2001, has two 20-bed psychiatric units, and 10 transition beds.

It is one of five regional treatment centres operated by Correctional Service Canada.