The day I visit Katie Simmonds at her west Winnipeg home, she’s arranged her son’s photographs on the coffee table. In each one, 17-year-old Aiden beams with the kind of smile that lights up his entire face. His hockey team portraits. A candid shot at the lake last summer. His high school graduation photo they’ll never get to take.
“I keep thinking about all the things he won’t get to do,” Katie says, her hands trembling slightly as she adjusts the frames. “But mostly, I keep thinking about how many times we asked for help.”
Aiden’s struggle with depression began when he was 14, gradually intensifying until last November when he attempted suicide for the first time. That night at the emergency room marked the beginning of what Katie calls “our impossible journey through a broken system” – one that ultimately failed her son when he took his life in February.
Katie’s story echoes a growing crisis in Winnipeg, where families seeking mental health support face mounting waitlists, fragmented services, and devastating gaps in care. Across the city, mental health advocates and healthcare providers describe a system buckling under pressure, leaving vulnerable people without critical support during their darkest moments.
“We were told Aiden needed immediate psychiatric care,” Katie recalls of that first ER visit. “Then we waited four months for an appointment. Four months where he got worse every day.”
According to the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, youth mental health emergency room visits have increased 74% in Winnipeg over the past decade, while residential treatment spaces have remained virtually unchanged. The Canadian Mental Health Association Manitoba reports that average wait times for specialized youth psychiatric services now extend beyond 18 weeks – a lifetime when someone is in crisis.
Dr. Analyn Einarson, a psychiatrist at Health Sciences Centre, sees the consequences of these delays daily. “We’re working with an outdated model designed for physical health emergencies, not mental health crises,” she explains. “Someone experiencing psychosis or suicidal ideation can’t simply wait months for treatment, but that’s exactly what we’re asking families to do.”
For Katie, the waiting period involved desperate phone calls to every service she could find. “I called the crisis response centre daily. I begged his school counselor for help. I reached out to every private therapist in the city, but either they weren’t taking new patients or we couldn’t afford them,” she says, showing me a notebook filled with names, numbers, and dead ends.
When Aiden finally received his psychiatric assessment in March, the psychiatrist recommended intensive outpatient treatment – only to discover the program had a six-month waiting list. “He looked at us and said, ‘I don’t know what to tell you. The system isn’t working,'” Katie remembers.
The gaps aren’t just affecting youth. At Klinic Community Health, social worker Denise Marriott has witnessed a 63% increase in adult crisis calls since 2019. “We’re seeing people who’ve never struggled with mental health before experiencing severe anxiety and depression, alongside those with chronic conditions who’ve lost their support networks,” Marriott says.
Much of this strain dates back to healthcare restructuring in 2017, when Manitoba consolidated mental health services across Winnipeg’s hospitals. The changes, intended to streamline care, instead created what many frontline workers describe as a “maze” that’s nearly impossible for families to navigate.
“The current system places the burden on patients and families to coordinate their own care,” explains James Frankel, executive director of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba. “We expect people in the depths of mental health crises to be their own case managers, making calls, following up, and advocating for themselves when they’re least capable of doing so.”
For Indigenous communities, these barriers are compounded by cultural disconnection and historical trauma. Diane Redsky, executive director of Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, points to the need for culturally appropriate mental health services. “Our communities are experiencing compounding grief from multiple losses, yet the Western medical model often fails to recognize how our healing approaches differ,” Redsky explains.
Some community organizations are trying to fill the gaps. The Manitoba Schizophrenia Society recently launched a peer support program that connects individuals with lived experience to those currently struggling. Eagle Urban Transition Centre provides cultural healing programs alongside counseling services. These grassroots efforts, while vital, can’t replace a comprehensive mental health system.
Provincial health officials acknowledge the challenges. In a written statement, Shared Health Manitoba noted they’re “actively working to address wait times through a multi-year mental health strategy,” though specific timelines and funding commitments remain unclear.
For Katie Simmonds, these promises come too late. She’s channeled her grief into advocacy, creating a support group for families navigating mental health services and speaking at community forums. “I can’t bring Aiden back, but I can fight to make sure other mothers don’t experience this pain,” she says.
As we finish our conversation, Katie shows me one last photo – Aiden at Bird’s Hill Park last fall, arms outstretched against a brilliant sunset. “This is how I want to remember him,” she says quietly. “Full of possibility.”
But she also wants Winnipeg to remember what happened after this photo was taken – the desperate calls, the endless waitlists, the system that failed her son when he needed it most. In a city facing a mental health service crisis, these are the stories that demand not just our attention, but our action.
