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OURS: Mental-health problem needs team approach

The Rapid City Journal
Feb 12, 2017

The nation's mental-health crisis hit home this month when Regional Health informed Rapid City and Pennington County officials that it would no longer admit behavioral-health patients to its main hospital unless they had "acute medical needs."

This means that once Regional Health'sBehavioral Health Center on Mountain View Road, which has around 40 beds, is at capacity and a person suffering from a mental illness or dementia seeks help the health-care company will contact the Sheriff's Office to remove that individual, who then could either be jailed or released back into the community.

In a correspondence dated Jan. 23, Regional announced the policy change would take effect Feb. 1, which alarmed Sheriff Kevin Thom and Police Chief Karl Jegeris, who said the region's only health-care provider had put them in an untenable position and with virtually no notice.

While Regional officials could have done a much better job of handling what is a profound change in its policies by reaching out to stakeholders before they made their announcement, the decision also reflects this nation's problems with meeting a growing demand for behavioral health care.

We see the problem on the streets of Rapid City where the congregation of homeless people downtown has been called a social-service problem by Mayor Steve Allender. Our county jail, meanwhile, already detains a number of people suffering from mental illnesses, including those whose extreme self-medication guarantees they will return to jail over and over again.

As this nation has moved from warehousing the mentally ill in state hospitals and before that sanitariums it has fallen short of a goal established in the 1960s to develop a network of community health centers as a way of providing treatment that enables patients to live in their homes while managing their illnesses.

At the same time the cost of all health care and medication have risen dramatically over the years, which means it can be quite expensive to provide care for someone who will need it for years. At this point in time, it is apparent that Regional Health feels it can't afford to provide specialized care to those suffering from mental illnesses and dementia.

It is equally clear, however, that the city and county are in no position to fill that void and incarcerating the mentally ill or those suffering from dementia seems cruel at best and could certainly exacerbate their conditions. Releasing them into the community, on the other hand, puts the patients and possibly others at risk.

While there are no easy answers to this problem, it simply can't be dismissed by community leaders either. In the short term, we urge Regional Health officials to meet with the sheriff's office, the police department and other stakeholders to develop at least a temporary solution to a problem that was suddenly thrust upon the entire community.

Long term, we ask that Sens. Thune and Rounds and Rep. Noem use their influence to provide resources to local communities that will help them care for the mentally ill. The state, meanwhile, should view the mental-health crisis with the same urgency as the methamphetamine epidemic. Gov. Daugaard, to his credit, has appropriated more than $600,000 in the war against this drug, which includes funds to keep meth users out of jail.

If we turn our backs on those suffering from mental illnesses, we will pay a price in the long term that will ripple through our entire society. At the same time, doing nothing about this other than calling law enforcement is not sustainable and certainly not a solution.

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