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MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE NEWS:
The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room
Instead of helping her, they ignored her. The story
behind the videotape that shocked the country.
Published Jul 12, 2008
From the magazine issue dated Jul 21, 2008
for full story and video see
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145870?tid=relatedcl
As disturbing as the circumstances of
Esmin Green's death were, they should not have come as a surprise.
Public hospitals across the country have struggled to provide acute
psychiatric care to the poor and uninsured since the early 1960s, when
large mental hospitals began closing their doors en masse. Rather than
lock them away in cold, uncaring institutions, the thinking went, the
mentally ill should be offered a place in society. But with insufficient
outpatient services and a dearth of community-based support, the least
fortunate of them have ended up in already overtaxed emergency rooms.
They are the poor, the uninsured and the undocumented. Many of them
suffer from chronic conditions that could potentially be treated with
medication and regular counseling, luxuries most of them cannot afford.
With just 50,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for tens of millions of
people across the country, the mentally ill typically wait twice as long
for treatment as other patient populations do. "It's like landing
airplanes at O'Hare airport," says Ken Duckworth, medical director of
the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "For psychiatric patients in
particular, every day is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at O'Hare.
There is just no place for them to go."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145870?tid=relatedcl
The Shortage of public hospital beds for mentally
ill Persons
A report by the Treatment Advocacy Center
Since the 1960s there has been a mass exodus of patients from public
psychiatric hospitals. Data are available on the number of patients in
such hospitals in 1955 and in 2004–2005. The data show that:
 | In 2005 there were 17 public
psychiatric beds available per 100,000 population compared to 340 per
100,000 in 1955. Thus, 95 percent of the beds available in 1955 were no
longer available in 2005. |
| The states with the fewest beds
were Nevada (5.1 per 100,000), Arizona (5.9), Arkansas (6.7), Iowa
(8.1), Vermont (8.9), and Michigan (9.9). The states with the most beds
were South Dakota (40.3) and Mississippi (49.7). |
| A consensus of experts polled for
this report suggests that 50 public psychiatric beds per 100,000
population is a minimum number. Thus, 42 of the 50 states had less than
half the minimum number needed, and Mississippi was the only state to
achieve this goal. |
| The total estimated shortfall of
public psychiatric beds needed to achieve a minimum level of psychiatric
care is 95,820 beds. |
| The consequences of the severe
shortage of public psychiatric beds include increased homelessness; the
incarceration of mentally ill individuals in jails and prisons;
emergency rooms being overrun with patients waiting for a psychiatric
bed; and an increase in violent behavior, including homicides, in
communities across the nation. |
| The consequences of the severe
shortage in public psychiatric beds could be improved with the
widespread utilization of PACT (Program of
Assertive Community Treatment) programs and assisted outpatient
treatment (AOT), both of which have been proven to decrease
hospitalization. It could also be improved with greater flexibility in
federal and state regulations allowing for the development of
alternatives to hospitalization. |
read full report on Treatment Advocacy Center website:
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/Reportbedshortage.htm
A Vital Tool - Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT)
________________________________________________
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The U.S. Senate passes legislation for equitable mental health
insurance coverage.
Read NAMI National's publication online
 |
January 29, 2007
Hospital losing mental patients
Bucks County worries it won't have the resources to care for mentally ill patients once they leave Norristown State Hospital.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/113-01292007-1290350.html
By JENNA PORTNOY
The Intelligencer
HATFIELD - As Linda Drakas looked around her Hatfield apartment, still decorated for Christmas, she rattled off things she never expected to have:
a job as a prep cook at T.G.I.Fridays, a Walkman blasting her favorite INXS
tunes, and most of all, freedom.
Six years ago she lived at the state psychiatric hospital in Norristown
where someone else made all her decisions.
“People who live in institutions like I did don't want a life like that,”
the 36-year-old said. “They want to go out and do something with their lives.”
full
story
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The New York Times
January 21, 2006
Medicare Woes Take High Toll on Mentally Ill
By ROBERT PEAR
HILLIARD, Fla., Jan. 16 - On the seventh day of the new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, ominous voices, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was admitted to a hospital here for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia.
full story
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Man triumphs over mental illness and succeeds in helping others
SUSAN JURGELSKI
Lancaster New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. - Bob Forrey has heard the voice of God.
He once commanded Forrey to strip and plunge into the Susquehanna River.
But Forrey's orders from God weren't divine inspirations.
They were hallucinations, symptoms of an illness that put him on a tightrope between illusion and reality.
Forrey is the award-winning executive director of the Lancaster County Consumer Satisfaction Team, whose members, while struggling with their own mental illness, survey and advocate for mental-health consumers.
full story
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reported August 4, 2005
Severe Mental Illness Linked to Crime Victims
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- More than one-fourth of people with severe mental illness were victims of crime last year, according to a new study. That is 11-times the rate of the general population.
read more
SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005;62:911-921
16 National Organizations Cite Crisis in Mental Health System, Release Roadmap for Reform
WASHINGTON, July 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the U.S. Capitol, the Campaign for Mental Health Reform released "Emergency Response: A Roadmap for Federal Action on America's Mental Health Crisis."
The coalition of 16 national organizations proposed 28 action steps as a "roadmap" for Congress and the Administration to transform the country's ailing mental health care system.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 19, 2004
Miami HERALD WATCHDOG
Mental illness pushes families to the limit
Across the country, the families of the seriously mentally ill are stuck in an all-consuming struggle to save the sick from themselves.
BY JOE
MOZINGO
full story
WASHINGTON, July 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Thousands of children with mental illnesses await needed community mental health services in juvenile detention centers across the
country, according to a new report released at a hearing in the U.S. Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee this morning.
"Children who need a safety net instead wind up waiting in juvenile
detention," said Tammy Seltzer, senior staff attorney at the Washington-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. "Thousands of children are locked up because the system isn't offering them the help that they need when they need it."
Hastert stops bill to boost mental illness coverage
June 11, 2004
BY FREDERIC J. FROMMER
WASHINGTON -- Aided by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), insurance companies successfully have blocked legislation to make them provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses if their policies include both.
03/20/04
Police get primer on mental illness
Their numbers are not large, but the quality training they received may help reduce the jail population.
Twenty-nine police officers, including two from the Venice (CA) Police Department, other local police departments and the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, graduated Friday from the community's first-ever Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training at Keiser College in Sarasota.
"The idea is to re-educate our officers so they can help get people into crisis centers instead of jail," Sarasota County Health Department spokeswoman Dianne Shipley said.
http://www.venicegondolier.com/NewsArchive3/032004/vn7.htm
| Highway sniper case highlights need for improved mental care |
03/19/2004
|
McCoy has paranoid schizophrenia, an acquaintance told reporters, citing what she'd been told by his family. Authorities won't confirm that, but have said McCoy has a mental illness and had stopped taking his medication.
The legal system will provide justice for McCoy and his victims, we're confident.
But the fact that McCoy is mentally ill should not be used to further tar the much-stigmatized image of our neighbors who are mentally ill. We want to make sure they are treated justly by the public as well. Being ill is not a crime.
read
full article
STRESS AILS CAREGIVERS
Daily News (New York) ...
More than 1 million New Yorkers are at increased risk for depression or
anxiety, heart attack, stroke, muscle and joint problems, weakened immune
systems and sometimes premature death. Those same New Yorkers also are prone to
sleeplessness, fatigue, weight gain and gastrointestinal problems. Who are these individuals?
They are ordinary people who care for disabled or chronically ill family members or friends, sometimes for decades - without pay, training and/or support from the health care system.
Senate bill defines mental illness
Lawmakers are asked to clarify competency in SB49
By Jennifer Dobner
Deseret Morning News
When a death warrant was signed last summer for Roberto Arguelles, questions were raised about the state of the convicted killer's mental health.
In court hearings, Arguelles, 41, would spit and shout obscenities, rambling in long incoherent sentences. In his cell at the Utah State Prison, he ate his own feces, court documents and plastics.
The Department of Corrections asked the court for a competency evaluation to ensure the inmate understood the ramifications of the death warrant. But Arguelles, who raped and murdered four women, died of natural causes last fall before that evaluation was complete.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590041889,00.html
Ed Kuny and son, Thomas have learned much about about mental illness since Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia 29 years ago.
By BIBB UNDERWOOD - Special Writer
"Thomas is very intelligent," Ed Kuny said, as he began this interview. "He is reasonably fluent in French and he does wonderful art. He has done more than 30 pictures and we are planning to take them to San Antonio to a 'starving artist' exhibit and see if he can sell a few."
Thomas is Ed Kuny's 44 year-old son who suffers from schizophrenia. Ed says Thomas was around 15 when they began to realize something was not normal, but he was not positively diagnosed until age 20.
"Because of Thomas, my wife, Sally, and I became very involved with the National Alliance
on Mental Illness (NAMI). It literally saved our family. .."
Homelessness
and Mental Illness :
A downward spiral to the street
January 28, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/28/EDG744IEOE1.DTL
Workplace stress and depression are exacting a heavy toll, particularly among conscientious employees "in their prime working years," say a group of corporate leaders who have pledged to conduct mental health audits of their own organizations.
A set of guidelines, to be released today by the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, says mental illness is now the leading cause of employee disability and, as such, should be addressed at the corporate board level.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040217/RGUID17/TPBusiness/TopStories
...studies by the National Institute of Mental Health and others have shown that
90 percent of suicides are related to undiagnosed, untreated, or inadequately treated mental illness...Montana has the second or third highest suicide rate in the country.
Suicide has hit the front page in Montana newspapers recently. There have been four suicides at the Montana State Prison in the past eight months.
On Jan. 29, Governor Judy Martz and Gail Gray, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, held a press conference dedicated to preventing teen suicides in Montana.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/02/17/opinions/a04021704_02.txt
Troubled Students Feel
College Nudges Them Off Campus
By KATHARINE
A. KAPLAN
Harvard Crimson
Staff Writer
Peter F. Lake ’81, a professor of law at Stetson University in Florida who has
published a book on university legal obligations, says that nudging students off
campus is one way universities currently deal with the burgeoning mental health
“crisis” on campuses.
“There’s a number of approaches to the first generation of
the problem, and one thing is to push the problem off campus,” Lake says.
“It may not be the best thing for them or the school, but it’s one solution
to the campus issue.”
Hyman says that liability is always a concern for medical
institutions because of the number of lawsuits filed by patients...
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357115&picnum=1
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of Bucks County
Pennsylvania
