{"id":33727,"date":"2023-10-20T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=33727"},"modified":"2023-10-20T12:00:48","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T16:00:48","slug":"southlake-dedicates-emergent-mental-health-unit-in-honour-of-newroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/southlake-dedicates-emergent-mental-health-unit-in-honour-of-newroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Southlake dedicates Emergent Mental Health unit in honour of NewRoads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was a celebration of a job well done at Southlake Regional Health Centre as the local hospital dedicated its Emergent Mental Health Assessment Unit in honour of NewRoads Automotive Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Newmarket-based auto leader has been a long-time key fundraiser for Southlake\u2019s mental health programs through several initiatives, most recently their annual NewRoads LakeRide. Their contributions have been essential to the hospital\u2019s capital campaign to create and open new mental health spaces and the October 12 event was to celebrate NewRoads and all those who made the transformation possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore this, our patients had to stay in the emergency department two days, three days, and sometimes you\u2019re talking about sleeping in a chair overnight before coming upstairs,\u201d said Dr. Mahdi Memarpour, Southlake\u2019s Chief of Psychiatry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The creation of a new assessment unit where patients can enjoy dignity and privacy was \u201camazing and very emotional for many people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we started, on the very first day I looked at [the unit] and couldn\u2019t believe we had this,\u201d he continued. \u201cPeople would come up\u2026 to a modern facility here: a private room, shower, things that didn\u2019t exist [previously]. Now they have it and it is unbelievable in their recovery. From an emergency department where they had to sleep in a chair to something extraordinary. Many people who have sometimes been here before, for example a couple of years ago, can\u2019t believe the transformation. For that again, I would like to thank everyone who was involved, including people who really worked on designing it and especially the donors who really helped us build this. It serves the community well and it decreases the stigma that comes with psychiatric illness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new space, added Aga Dojczewska, Manager of Inpatient Adult Mental Health and Emergent Mental Health Assessment Unit, is also being felt by staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is an incredible space,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of the patients were coming in, after days of not taking care of themselves, and that shower that we have is such an incredible basic need that every one of us needs and we are addressing this by having this incredible space. Staff love working here. We are actually seeing they are coming to work and they are very satisfied with the level of care they can provide to every patient we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All those who contributed to Southlake\u2019s capital campaign for mental health contributed to the \u201cdignity of peace, privacy and security\u201d for patients and their families, said representatives of the Southlake Regional Health Centre Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was not even a full six months that we were in COVID when we really recognized our need for better spaces to bring our mental health care environment to modern standards and how urgent this was,\u201d said Jennifer Klotz-Ritter, President and CEO of the Southlake Foundation. \u201cI think we all remember the necessity of looking after mental health and wellbeing, especially during COVID, and that continues today. Our spaces at the time were really crowded, they were lacking what our clinicians and our staff would talk about as the basic necessities of care that happens \u2013 dignity, privacy, and in a therapeutic environment conducive to a healing journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe demand exponentially grew. It was very challenging to undertake this campaign and\u2026it was a challenging decision to undertake this campaign when we were still in the first year of COVID, but I\u2019ve always said that it is the donors and the supporters of the community who decide what is and is not acceptable when we\u2019re trying to deliver healing and care to our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fundraising goal, she added, was reached at the end of Southlake\u2019s last fiscal year and, this past February, opened the inpatient adult mental health unit to its first patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are so grateful you answered the call and stood by our side so we could bring [our talented clinicians and staff] the tools and environment they need in order to help our brothers, our sisters, our parents, our children, our family our colleagues, get the healing care they need when they need it,\u201d concluded Klotz-Ritter. \u201cThis is an example of the extraordinary power of community, community investment, and philanthropy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As community contributors assembled for the unveiling a donor wall recognizing their donations and fundraising efforts, NewRoads CEO Michael Croxon, joined by Sharon Croxon, underscored the importance the Automotive Group places in mental health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong before COVID, we at New Roads identified mental health as a growing need not only in our community but the world and decided to throw our collective weight behind raising funds for that initiative,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we all know COVID just sort of exacerbated that need and it became even more prevalent and even more apparent we needed to up our game and do our part in this community that is so special to our organization to give back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI get the honour of representing NewRoads and, ultimately, I guess signing the cheques that go to Southlake, but I couldn\u2019t do that without Sharon and I couldn\u2019t do that without the 430 people who work in our organization, who staff it every day, who volunteer endlessly at our charity events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMost of my senior team is here today and I want to give a shout out to them as well because certainly without them we wouldn\u2019t have the capacity to give back in the way in which we give back. We\u2019re immensely proud to be part of the Newmarket community, we\u2019re immensely proud to have our name on the assessment unit upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a celebration of a job well done at Southlake Regional Health Centre as the local hospital dedicated its Emergent Mental Health Assessment Unit in honour of NewRoads Automotive Group. The Newmarket-based auto leader has been a long-time key fundraiser for Southlake\u2019s mental health programs through several initiatives, most recently their annual NewRoads LakeRide. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/2023-10-20-04.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8LZ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 19:48:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}