Our mental health system in dire need of solutions

Unfortunately, Florida continues to reach the bottom of the barrel in dealing with deadly drug addiction and our mental health system. Recent Sun Sentinel articles prove once again the failure of Florida officials and medical care officials to deal with the devastating affects of our abysmal mental health system.

Prior to coming to Florida in 2006, I was the president of the Harford-Belair Mental Health System in Baltimore City, providing care to almost 1,000 of the most chronically challenged mental health patients in Maryland.

At first we were in the worst of straights when the state of Maryland closed all of its state mental hospitals, putting thousands of mental patients out on the streets. Then our board, made up of medical professionals, private health care providers, pharmacists (including myself ), social workers and devoted local residents, put together a comprehensive plan to take these mental patients off the streets by providing a comprehensive urban clinic and housing many of them in private local homes staffed by health care professionals.

We set up a non-profit corporation to purchase a number of homes in the area, which kept these patients out of local hospitals and saved Maryland in the first three years over $5,000,000 in medical assistance fees by treating these patients locally.

Florida has a better chance of “killing two birds” at same time — set up local clinics, close the sober homes, and then use the hundreds of beds that become available to help house many of our challenged mental health patients. There is nothing better than making a politician happy by helping to take a headache away while saving money at the same time.