Families in need of mental health services in Nova Scotia must wonder sometimes if the Department of Health and Wellness is misnamed.

For in a province in which families are increasingly complaining about lack of access to mental health services, the department has cut an internship program for nine doctoral students in clinical psychology in Nova Scotia. The provincial health board and the IWK Health Centre say they will pay for it in 2015-2016 but future funding is up in the air.

The program provides practical training in patient treatment at a cost of $220,000 a year. Heather Power, president of the Association of Psychologists of Nova Scotia, says her group wanted more internships, not fewer, given the lack of mental health professionals here.

She is concerned that if Dalhousie University students had to complete required internships elsewhere, they wouldn’t come back. A spokesman for the provincial health board said Friday that psychologists are difficult to recruit.

Access to treatment is already hampered by staffing shortages. A lack of psychiatrists is behind the three-month closure of the Aberdeen Hospital’s mental health unit this summer; the New Glasgow facility is well used but has been struggling to keep qualified staff, including nurses.

The province made the cut in April, when it also cut Eating Disorders Nova Scotia by 23 per cent.

Although Health Minister Leo Glavine has said there are challenges but no crisis in mental health care, NDP health critic Dave Wilson says the department has yet to produce an update on the province’s mental health and addictions strategy. And PC Leader Jamie Baillie, who does cite a crisis, has called for an inquiry.

Earlier this month, Victor Day, past president of the psychologists’ association, wrote that the province employs “relatively few” psychologists who can provide timely and cost-effective treatment for the mentally ill.

“Recent reviews of the cost-effectiveness of psychological services have found that the costs of providing psychological services are less than the costs of leaving problems untreated,” Dr. Day wrote in our Opinions section.

Dr. Day’s comments make sense. Lack of treatment for mental health problems, beyond the risks of misery, self-harm or suicide, leads to more emergency visits, higher disability and unemployment rates, more pressure on income support like social assistance, more homelessness and higher rates of hospitalization and incarceration.

The health-care system should provide treatment early when patients’ problems are manageable. A training program that attracts and keeps psychologists in the province and provides professional treatment through less costly interns helps to achieve that.

We reiterate our recent call for the government to review mental health services across the province in light of the many recent studies from reports during the last five years — notably the 2012 mental health strategy — to produce a workable plan that includes annual checkups.

Downloading health costs to the health boards doesn’t save the province money, it just moves it around on the board. And to put a valuable program on an insecure financial footing to make the books look good is poor public policy and proves that Mr. Glavine needs to develop a plan.