In the months leading up to World Mental Health Day, DC is shaken by a series of violent events that ended with innocent lives lost and our country’s mental health services called into question.
As federal and state governments look to cut budgets at almost any turn, mental and behavioral health services are often on the chopping block first.
While during this same time period, with lawmakers and policymakers striving to determine how to rein in our country’s financial burdens and overspending. Anyways, august though October brought DC into the spotlight for many reasons, the saddest of which is the violence that was covered by mass media as two shootings occurred. In one case, Aaron Alexis, a ’34yearold’, perpetrated a mass shooting that left 12 people dead, in Washington’s Navy Yard. Previous to the shooting, it was reported that Mr. Miriam Carey, 34, reportedly had an unhealthy obsession with the White House when she drove her car into the White House gates and led police on a chase around DC before being killed.
It was noted in the months leading up to the incident she believed that the President had been stalking her and albeit she had no reported psychosis or supposed violent intent.
Actually the impact of mental health funding shortages is great Whether less preventative actions in communities,, or this be through decreases in available services, lack of providers due to poor reimbursements.
Budget cuts continue to make seeking care more difficult, albeit societal stigma and knowledge of where to access behavioral and mental services are often barriers to care. So, in Chicago alone, state budget cuts combined with reductions in county and city mental health services led to shutting six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics. Furthermore, in the last five years, significant budget cuts have befallen mental health programs and services. From 2009 to 2011, states cut mental health budgets by a combined $ 4 billionthe largest single combined reduction to mental health spending since de institutionalization in the 1970s.
Whenever housing and employment assistance, health research, and virtually almost any public type mental health support, threats of sequestration in 2013 had a significant impact on people’s ability to access mental health services and programs, including children’s mental health services, suicide prevention programs, homeless outreach programs, substance abuse treatment programs. Despite the need to balance budget and make all health care services more efficient, quite a few argue that society has better ‘long term’ outcomes if more federal and state dollars are allocated to mental and behavioral health care. Homeless shelters and prisons, the societal cost of prevention and treatment should be exponentially less than funding those other outlets and catchment areas, since individuals with untreated mental illness often find themselves in emergency rooms. These costs can be exceptionally large over the lifetime given that the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that two children thirds with lifetime mental health problems never receive treatment.
Programs that address the mental health needs and provide services for youth show better outcomes in health and education that carry over the lifetime. On top of the broader society, so this takes substantial emotional and financial tolls on individuals and families.
Additionally staining on the mental health care system is that during times of recession and budget cuts the caseload for mental health actually increases. It was estimated that during this most recent recession, the caseload of community mental health services alone has increased almost 50 percent. Usually, the NIMH contends that one in 17 people suffer from a seriously debilitating mental illness, we as a society are accountable for ensuring that those in need have resources for care. That America as a whole saves money and resources caring for those in need in other, more expensive settings, not only does access to quality mental and behavioral health care ensure that individuals are being properly treated.
