According to the Washington Post, "Several top lawmakers in the Virginia House of Delegates called Monday for a significant infusion of money into the state's mental-health system to address shortcomings exposed after Seung Hui Cho killed 32 people at Virginia Tech two months ago." In addition, the father of Virginia Tech shooting victim Reema Samaha spoke to the Virginia House Welfare and Institutions Committee on this issue, saying:
Gentleman, the opportunity is now, and it's time that you become responsible and proactive -- not reactive -- on legislation that will . . . fund mental-health care, with the coordination of education, policies and administration of the laws.
I couldn't agree more with Joe Samaha: mental health care - and health care in general, by the way - needs to be a high priority here in Virginia. This will take money. California, Massachusetts, and other states have moved to guarantee that all their citizens have quality health care coverage; how about Virginia? The Virginia Tech shootings were a glaring example of what can happen when a severely mentally ill person remains untreated (and also gains access to serious firepower). And, unfortunately, Virginia's not doing too well when it comes to mental health care:
Virginia spent $423.4 million on community-based and institutional mental-health services in 2006. The state ranks near the bottom in funding of community-based services. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill gave Virginia a "D" grade in 2006 for its overall performance for its mental-health services, estimating that the state ranks 30th nationally in per capita spending at $68 a year.
It's high time our leaders turn this situation around.
Albo Must Go mentinoed it over the weekend and got only 2 comments (one from me).
It's time for Republican accountability on this issue. Virginia may rank 30th in the country in mental health, but it's also had two multiple shootings committed by severely mentally unstable individuals in the last twelve months (VT and the Fairfax County Sully District Station).
These problems, the grass not being mowed, etc. are all what happens when you don't fund Government the way it should be funded.
In today's Post article said we're going to have to fund the money from somewhere else in the budget - where? Kaine just announced a $300M deficit, they just pulled $120M per year out by cutting the estate tax, and the General Assembly just decided to take all of the "surpluses" and commit them to transportation. What do they want to cut? Schools? Jails? Public safety?
The headline of this post should be:
STARVE THE BEAST = PEOPLE DIE? THAT is the thrust of this story. Republican can't govern. They hate government too much.
Many mentally ill people who are clearly a danger to themselves or others are never hospitalized at all, particularly the destitute and uninsured. State hospital admissions personnel are quite adept at mindlessly repeating that "we are an acute care facility only," while ignoring, refusing to admit, and prematurely releasing those who have committed violent acts, those who clearly will commit future violent acts, and those who cannot care for themselves or have any hope of living in a less restrictive setting.
These people eventually wind up threatening and assaulting their overburdened families or caregivers or strangers, or wandering the streets, unmedicated. If those around them call for emergency help, the "emergency responder" will often not be the mental health screener required by law, but a police officer or deputy sheriff. The mentally ill will not be taken for needed treatment, but instead will be thrown in jail. There they will not receive appropriate treatment, and will often become victims of other inmates. Some jails have special uniforms for the mentally ill.
When I saw the news report on the state mental health inspector general, who said that it often took a month to get mental health treatment from a community provider, my unthinking reaction was to laugh. Not laugh, as in ha-ha funny. Really, not funny at all, and not even close to the truth.
If only it took only a month! If only barriers to treatment were not placed in the way of the mentally ill and their families and caregivers at every turn! The most common ploy: schizophrenics have to "agree" to treatment. Not likely, given the suspicion and paranoia that often accompanies this all-too common disease. As we have seen, the law provides methods of treating those who do not agree, but those laws are ignored. Find another medical problem, and that problem will be blamed for the symptoms of even a lifelong mentally ill person. Miss an appointment, they're out. Late for an appointment, we'll see. Want to make another appointment, it could take weeks or months. Need medications in the meantime? Too bad. One CSB mental health worker actually told me that she would not get medication refills for my client, who had just been released from a state psychiatric hospital, until her appointment (weeks away), and that "if she decompensates in the meantime, she'll just have to go back to [the state hospital]."
While the state mental health system shuffles the same mentally ill people in and out of too-temporary TDOs over and over, rather than simply providing evaluation and long-term treatment, the community services boards look for any excuse, legitimate or not, to deny them the treatment they need, or to shuffle them off to private providers no more willing or able to provide the treatment they need.
The shame of it is that schizophrenia and other serious mental illnesses are so much more treatable than in the past. If the state mental health system and the community services boards placed a renewed focus on necessary treatment, and stopped shuffling these same patients back and forth and around and around, attempting to shift responsibility to another level of government or to the private sector, many lives could be saved, could be made bearable, could even be made productive and fulfilling.
In the past, much of the debate on mental health care has focused on cost. Many of our General Assembly members simply do not agree that this is a government responsibility. The irony is, no one seems to have toted up the staggering cost of ignoring, jailing, and failing to treat the mentally ill. As we have seen too clearly, the cost of continuing the current system is very, very high, to the mentally ill, to their families and friends, to sheriffs and police officers, and to the rest of us.
Once dismissed as just part of growing up, peer rejection has in recent years been linked with a host of problem behaviors, possibly including an individual's chances of developing mental illness.Scientists say that while repeated and deliberate rejection by one's peers may result in little lasting harm for some young people, in others it causes alienation, withdrawal, depression, anxiety and even violent outbursts such as school shootings.
An extreme example is Seung Hui Cho, who fatally shot 32 people at Virginia Tech on April 16 before committing suicide. In messages he left to be viewed after his death, Cho said his rampage flowed from a long history of being socially isolated and bullied.
By the way, I find it interesting (ironic? appropriate?) that several commenters tried to "bully" bloggers into not talking about bullying after the Virginia Tech shootings. Well, it's time to talk about it, and it's time to tell the bullies - whether in 7th grade or on the blogs - where to shove it.