Marlene Carter returns to Saskatchewan for mental health treatment

After more than a year and a half at the Brockville Mental Health Centre, a mentally ill Cree woman has returned toSaskatchewan where her family hopes she'll receive more culturally relevant treatment closer to her home community.

Marlene Carter, 44, was transported Monday from the Brockville facility to the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon.

"I'm relieved that she's not so far away," said her sister Peggy Harper from Onion Lake Cree Nation, about 320 km northwest of Saskatoon.

• Mentally ill Cree woman can go home to Saskatchewan, board says

Carter has spent most of her adult life institutionalized, either in prisons or mental health facilities.

She endured physical and sexual abuse as a child, attempted suicide several times, and eventually fell into a life of drug and alcohol abuse and crime.

Ruling in January to send her back to Saskatchewan

Authorities in Saskatchewan originally moved her from the Saskatoon institution to Brockville in the summer of 2014 for assaulting guards.

But at a hearing in January, the Ontario Review Board ruled she could go back to Saskatchewan after her advocates argued she'd respond better to treatment connected to her Cree background closer to home.

"The hospital that she will eventually be in is right close to the reserve that she's from, and she has support from that reserve, support from that community, which is very, very important to her good mental health," said Carter's lawyer, Michael O'Shaughnessy.

Carter has a deep scar on her forehead from repeatedly striking her head against hard surfaces while in custody. Her treatments have included electroshock therapy, and she's spent long periods in isolation.

'That mental illness was causing her to kill herself'

"That mental illness was causing her to kill herself," added O'Shaughnessy. "As a result of the treatment (in Brockville), that stopped and her behaviour improved, and she no longer was doing things that could result in her death."

Carter's sister credits the work of Algonquin elder Albert Dumont in helping her get better, and she hopes that kind of treatment continues in Saskatoon. Dumont visited her regularly in Brockville, where he performed smudge ceremonies and encouraged her to learn more about her Cree heritage.

"I'm really hoping that I can get one of the elders that have been her support here in Saskatchewan to go, and she's willing to go and see Marlene. How often? I don't know," said Harper.

'They have to treat her like a human being'

She's not sure when she can see Carter, but hopes to sometime this week. She also wants to meet with officials at the Saskatoon facility to learn exactly what kind of treatment her sister will get there.

"They have to treat her like a human being," said Harper. "Treat her for her mental illness, not the criminal part that they keep her incarcerated for."

Carter had two outstanding charges for assaulting police officers while in Brockville, but O'Shaugnessy says she has since pleaded guilty to those and received suspended sentences.