A 42-year-old Saskatoon woman has spoken out about her experience at the Irene and Leslie Dube Centre for Mental Health.

Candace Middleton said she spent only four days in a mental health care bed during her nine week stay in the Royal University Hospital’s specialized unit.

Middleton said after waiting a week to get admitted, she spent day-after-day being moved in and out of a basement area used for electroconvulsive therapy and became sleep deprived.

The woman who was diagnosed as bi-polar twenty years ago said that made the issues she hoped to have treated worse and left the facility no better off than when she went in for help.

Middleton is also a cancer survivor and stressed there is a huge difference between the care for the physically and mentally ill.

NDP Health Critic Danielle Chartier said the Sask Party Government hasn’t addressed chronic overcapacity at the Dube Centre.

She felt the new seven bed assessment unit opened in late April has made things for comfortable for those awaiting treatment but suggested patients are still being turned away.

Chartier said devoting about five percent of the health care budget for mental health isn’t nearly enough.