Lisa Herritt (right) has been receiving care through the ketamine therapy program at the QEII since 2023. The program is led by Dr. Abraham Nunes (left), a QEII psychiatrist.
Last summer, Lisa Herritt went on a dream vacation with her oldest son to Ireland and Scotland. A trip that up until last year wouldn’t have been possible for her.
“I was able to keep up. I enjoyed his excitement. I wanted to go on all the excursions he was planning, which is a very different experience than I've had before, where I was dragging myself to go because I didn't want to miss it, or I didn't want my children to think I was absent. It was remarkable that I was able to do it,” says Lisa.
Lisa lives with treatment-resistant depression and has been chronically depressed for more than 20 years. It has impacted her day-to-day life as a wife and mother, and her career as a clinical pharmacist at the IWK in the neonatal intensive care unit. A job she loved but had to step away from nearly eight years ago.
In the past two decades, Lisa and her healthcare providers have tried dozens of different treatment options and therapies. But none provided relief for more than three months at a time.
“I’ve tried every conceivable combination of medication and therapies, like rTMS [repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation] and ECT [electroconvulsive therapy],” says Lisa. “As a pharmacist, I knew I was running out of options.”
A new sense of hope
But in August 2023, Lisa finally found a treatment option that worked for her: ketamine therapy at the QEII Health Sciences Centre. For the first time in nearly 20 years, Lisa had a sense of hopefulness.
“At the time, I was doing quite poorly. I had been self-isolating. I didn’t think I had anything to offer my family. I was experiencing profound sadness. I didn’t want to interact with people. And I couldn’t concentrate,” reflects Lisa.
“I began treatments of IV ketamine at the QEII over the course of two and a half weeks. I began to see improvement. The anxiety and depression decreased and my ability to be present with my family and friends increased,” says Lisa.
Increasing access with donor support
Currently in Nova Scotia, ketamine therapy is only available to a small number of patients on a compassionate basis who are referred through the Nova Scotia Health Mental Health and Addictions Mood Disorders Clinic. Like Lisa, they have exhausted all other options.
Dr. Abraham Nunes, a QEII psychiatrist and ketamine therapy program lead, says that right now, the program only has the capacity to treat one patient every two weeks. Considering between approximately 17,000 and 25,000 Nova Scotians are living with treatment-resistant depression, better access is needed.
That’s possible with donor support. The QEII Foundation is raising $370,000 for a ketamine therapy program at the QEII to treat more patients. As part of the Foundation’s $100 million We Are campaign, access to a donor-funded ketamine therapy program will help make mental health care more accessible and equitable.
The funding will support staff resources and treatment space where patients can safely and comfortably receive IV infusion therapy and recover following their treatment. Dr. Nunes estimates they can increase access to eight patients per day with donor support.
“We can establish a program for two years to show its effectiveness with the goal of securing provincial government funding, offering ketamine therapy to anyone who could benefit,” says Dr. Nunes.
Reducing symptoms of suicidality
According to Dr. Nunes, in a supervised clinical setting like the QEII ketamine therapy program, ketamine is a clinically proven safe and effective treatment.
“There is no other treatment that can as safely provide such rapid improvement in depression and reducing symptoms of suicidality,” he says.
“Treatment-resistant depression is the biggest risk factor for suicide. Depression is already a major risk factor for suicide, and treatment resistance multiplies that risk by 10 times.”
Until the funding is secured, the only option is private clinics, which are cost-prohibitive for many people, especially if they are not able to work because of their mental health, which Dr. Nunes says it is extremely common in the patients he works with. Furthering the inequalities in mental health care access.
Lisa knows firsthand the financial impact that relying on private clinics can have.
In order to maintain the improvements in her health, Lisa has been receiving ketamine therapy at a private clinic since fall 2023, once ketamine was established as a fit for her. It’s her only option until ketamine is funded. Lisa estimates she has spent thousands of dollars out of pocket.
'Oh my gosh, this is working'
Lisa’s care team tried to remove ketamine as her depression improved, but her symptoms worsened. That means that it’s been established that she has to continue ketamine in combination with another therapy to maintain her mental health improvements.
“I can’t speak for anyone else, but this is a life-changing treatment, and it should be available to more people sooner who can benefit,” Lisa says.
“This treatment helped me. The decade before I tried ketamine was a lost decade for me. I remember the first time I laughed that it was a real laugh, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is working,’” Lisa says.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword because it’s a little heartbreaking to think about the time I lost as well. Ketamine should not be the last line of defense for people, considering its effectiveness. I’m not saying it should be the first, but I would argue that it needs to move up the chain to when it is tried,” she says.
It’s a sentiment Dr. Nunes agrees with. He would like to see ketamine offered after two other medications, instead of upwards of 10, which he commonly sees. That’s why donor support is critical in offering it more broadly to treat depression sooner.
To learn more or donate, visit QE2Foundation.ca/ketamine
