Posted: Mar 12, 2021 5:50 PM AT | Last Updated: March 12
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Liberal Sonny Gallant, top left, and Opposition leader Peter Bevan-Baker, bottom left, peppered Premier Dennis King, top right, and Health Minister Ernie Hudson, lower right, with questions about what they called government's 'privatization' of mobile mental-health units. (P.E.I. Legislative Assembly)
A controversial change to the way the Prince Edward Island government plans to run a long-awaited mobile mental-health crisis service dominated question period in the provincial legislature Friday.
The province plans to have three mobile units — one based in each of P.E.I.'s counties — able to respond to people experiencing a mental health crisis, along with a 24-hour phone line as a first point of contact for those in distress. The units will operate 12 hours a day, from noon until midnight, and are to be staffed by a mental health professional, a plain-clothes police officer and a paramedic.