OURS: Mental-health problem needs team approach
The Rapid City JournalFeb 12, 2017
The nation's mental-health crisis hit home this month when
This means that once
In a correspondence dated
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
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
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
Long term, we ask that Sens. Thune and Rounds and
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.