MUHC cuts decimate music therapy programs

Le groupe MusiArt, the choir and band whose members are patients of the MUHC’s crumbling music therapy program, were given a reprieve some weeks ago. But not before members suffered days of heartbreak and anxiety that they should not have been put through in the first place.

And the group is not the only victim of merciless budget cuts — the vaunted Allen Memorial Institute (AMI) will also be losing its music therapists, and a program that so many with mental health struggles have come to depend on.

Bessy Vasilakopoulos is one of them. The program is “essential,” she says, “and taking it away from the hospital is a great disservice to everyone.”

As a result of the cuts, two of the three music therapists hitherto employed by the MUHC have lost their jobs. One, Julie Migner-Laurin, worked three days a week. The other, Julien Peyrin, worked one day a week. In fact, it was Migner-Laurin’s dismissal that nearly led to the loss of the choir.

Le groupe MusiArt was saved through an association with Les Impatients, a community collective that helps mental illness sufferers find relief through artistic expression. It will also absorb the AMI’s Women’s Music Therapy Circle. But its Day Hospital Music Therapy Program, its AMI Music Therapy Group, and its individualized programs will all stop after March 20.

Vasilakopoulos, 58, has been a psychiatry patient at what is now the MUHC since the late 1980s, and has been in the AMI day program for about a year. She was a McGill music student, studying clarinet with the principal chair of the MSO. But her mental health disorders — severe anxiety, agoraphobia, panic attacks — sapped her of her dream of being a performing musician.

The MUHC and the AMI are otherwise very progressive and forward-thinking institutions, but Vasilakopoulos is disappointed in both. “I think the MUHC has lost its vision,” she says. “I understand that it’s not their fault. I know there are budget cuts coming from the government. But they have started chipping away at the psychiatric department at the Allen since over a year ago.” The Recovery Transitional Program (RTP) and the addictions unit have also shut down, meaning “vulnerable patients are being squeezed out of the hospital.”

Music therapy has scientifically proven (and cost-effective) efficacy in treating mental health. But the money to keep it going at the MUHC has dried up, a result of government cuts to healthcare and dwindling private donations. Money from the MGH Foundation usually covers music therapists’ salaries for three years, after which government funding kicks in. But the money just isn’t there anymore. Vasilakopoulos cannot help but wonder why the MUHC depends on outside donations, and why it cannot find the funding within the hospital.

The program, Vasilakopoulos says, provides patients with a safe, stigma-free, judgement-free space, and Migner-Laurin, she says, is “almost magical,” using “music as medicine.” By the end of each session, patients are uplifted. They become hopeful, re-energized, and less anxious. “It gives relief, on some days better than an actual pill,” that carries patients through to the next session. Losing Migner-Laurin, she says, was “heart-wrenching.”

Vasilakopoulos says she is indeed grateful to Les Impatients for stepping in to give Le groupe MusiArt and the Women’s Circle a new home. But taking these programs out of the hospital is a huge mistake. “The patients don’t have access to their doctor… they don’t have access to a case-nurse, they don’t have access to the OT, and everyone else on the team.”

She is still hoping that “the MUHC will reconsider their decision and keep both programs in the hospital. That’s going to take a miracle.”