OPINION: Mental health care is desperately needed, difficult to achieve
The BladeMar 02, 2018
Sometimes, adults whispered that adults who didn't seem to be normal might be taken off to "Eloise," a large psychiatric hospital in western
That doesn't happen anymore.
Read last week's column from
Nearly all state mental health facilities were closed down in a wave of deinstitutionalization beginning in the 1960s. Eloise, which was oddly named for a postmaster's daughter, closed in 1982.
Gov.
"Often these days, when you are trying to find a bed for a person all agree requires hospitalization -- you feel like your name is Mary and Joseph and you can't find a bed anywhere," said
The numbers back that up. Eloise alone once housed as many as 10,000 patients. According to
You might think that after so many mental hospitals were closed, local hospitals would have stepped up, but exactly the opposite happened. Last year, the number had dwindled to 2,197 adult beds and a mere 276 for younger people -- statewide.
The result is that too many patients who need to be hospitalized are repeatedly turned away, so they flood emergency rooms and eventually do something that lands them in prison.
Severely mentally ill prisoners are, in fact, one of the most rapidly growing parts of
Now, it is important to note that nobody is arguing in favor of again building enormous psychiatric hospitals to house thousands of patients.
"There were very good reasons to get rid of most of our state hospitals," said
He believes mental illness can be much more effectively treated on a community basis, and most other mental health professionals agree. But there is one problem; they aren't adequately funded.
"The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 created a financial incentive for states to close state-funded mental hospitals, while promising to fund community-based outpatient treatment and community mental health centers to replace the services provided by hospitals,"
However, "the community health centers that were to be the backbone of the promised community treatment system failed to materialize," mostly because the funds were never appropriated.
Combine that with rulings making it harder to intervene when someone has mental health issues, and,
EDITORIAL: An ounce of prevention
Recognizing this, the
When it comes to mental health needs,
Closing mental hospitals and letting people live in the community is great, he said -- if we "provide supportive services to make that successful." But we don't, he noted.
"We've honored the first because it's cheaper and ignored the second because that's cheaper, too. Let's face it -- there are no lobbyists for crazy people,"
But while not treating the severely mentally ill may save money in the short run, in the long run, it can be devastating -- especially in a society where everyone has access to high-powered guns.
Politically, however, that may not be easy to achieve.
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