Halton Healthcare

Mental illness is the second leading cause of hospitalization among 20-44 year olds. With your support, women in our region can receive timely mental health care, skills building, education and support when they need it most. Each year, approximately 1,600 women are supported through programming funded by the Run for Women at Halton Healthcare. Thanks to your donations, Halton Healthcare can offer programs such as the Halton Regional Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Inpatient Service (CAPIS), Recovery Through Education for Adolescents and Children of Halton (REACH), the Eating Disorders Clinic, the Adult Inpatient Psychiatric Service, and Outpatient Psychotherapy Services. Please help Halton Healthcare care for women and girls touched by mental illness living in Halton and the surrounding communities.

Gillian Grosman Story:
It all came to a head one day while Gillian was on a bus. “I saw someone laughing and I thought to myself, I can’t remember the last time I laughed. It devastated me.” She confessed to her mother what she had been hiding and got help. Luckily for Gillian she was admitted to the Outpatient Eating Disorders Program at Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital. Her treatment included group therapy sessions which she attended for a year.

“The program at OTMH enabled me to bring all these issues to the surface and become self-aware in a safe environment.” In group therapy, she was shocked to hear women who were finally getting help share their feelings of guilt. “These women were feeling guilty for wasting two hours of their day in therapy. They thought they were being selfish taking the time to get better and think about ‘me’. But getting better is work. It is a full-time job to get better.”

Today, Gillian has been out of the Outpatient Eating Disorders Program for five years. She is married with two children, has a day job in the Intensive Care Unit at a Toronto Hospital, and runs a private voice studio out of her home in Oakville. She is also a passionate advocate of de-stigmatizing mental health issues.