Our mental-health care response is in crisis mode
They’re “crazy,” “cuckoo for
Cocoa Puffs,” “squirrelly” and “loony.” These are some of the adjectives used by my fellow colleagues and family members to describe a human being with a mental-health diagnosis.
We all have had to struggle at some point in our lives with anxiety and depression, depending on the curveballs life has sent our way. Some of us emerge stronger; others continue to struggle not because of anything they’ve done wrong but due to a hormone imbalance.
Just imagine for a moment being diagnosed with hypertension. Your health-care provider, family members and friends will call to give advice on how important it is to eat healthy, take your medication and exercise to get the blood pressure under control to prolong your life.
Now, let’s change to any mental-health diagnosis which comes to mind. First there’s a fear in discussing such a diagnosis. Seldom do we receive advice from family and friends. Some in the health-care field mock such a diagnosis. Receiving advice on how to live a healthy life with a mentalhealth diagnosis is taboo in our society.
It saddens me how mental health is never discussed with the same amount of care and love that is given to heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes or any other debilitating chronic medical condition. This disparity is wrong and certainly is a disservice to our fellow brothers and sisters. Forty percent of our mental-health population has experienced trauma, be it physical, sexual or emotional; this makes it even harder to achieve mental health.
Yet, we don’t have an adequate system to care and treat our mental-health patients. They live in the streets in our communities and at times end up in our jails when they are in a manic or psychotic state. As a community we have to do better to tend to their needs.
A parent with no financial power has no choice but to call 911 when their child is going through a mental-health crisis. Where do you think, this child is taken to receive help? It is rarely to our hospitals; they are instead brought to the jail. Let this thought sit with you for a while. At a time when a person needs compassionate care they are instead taken to jail with very little human interaction. There is something categorically wrong with a parent being put in a position of calling a jail, not a hospital, for the well-being of their child with a mental-health disorder. When did we become desensitized to how we treat each other?
Once released from jail, some have no medications or connection in the community to find help, and therefore the vicious cycle continues.
Our mental-health care is in crisis mode; we have to find a way to care for our mental-health patients with a low risk of criminality. They don’t belong in the jail setting. In acute situations, they need to be cared for in a hospital with further access to rehabilitation that enables them to thrive in our community. I strongly believe that if we put our efforts and funds towards a better mental health care system, we will fulfill what Christ has asked of us:
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me . ... Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine you did for me.”
We need to create a program to divert our mental-health patients in Central Florida who are in crisis to a hospital setting. Funds are needed to train our first Responders, police officers and correctional officers to de-escalate during an encounter with a patient going through a manic or psychotic episode. The need is urgent, and our ethical responsibility is clear.