Science Daily
Originally published November 20, 2015
Countywide reductions in psychiatric services -- both inpatient and outpatient -- led to more than triple the number of emergency psychiatric consults and 55 percent increases in lengths of stay for psychiatric patients in the emergency department. The before and after study of the impact of decreasing county mental health services was published online in Annals of Emergency Medicine ('Impact of Decreasing County Mental Health Services on the Emergency Medicine').
"As is often the case, the emergency department catches everyone who falls through the cracks in the health care system," said lead study author Arica Nesper, MD, MAS of the University of California Davis School of Medicine in Sacramento. "People with mental illness did not stop needing care simply because the resources dried up. Potentially serious complaints increased after reductions in mental health services, likely representing not only worse care of patients' psychiatric issues but also the medical issues of patients with psychiatric problems."
The entire article is here.
Showing posts with label Community Resources. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Community Resources. Show all posts
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Reflection 30: In Defense of Our Troubling Values
By Jeff Garson
Radical Decency Community
Originally published March 13, 2011
Central to Radical Decency is the belief that:
Doing so, however, misses the point. The problem is not inherent in the values themselves. It lies, instead, in their over-emphasis and the relentless pressure to conform to their strictures.
Radical Decency puts its priority on modeling and promoting virtues that are, in our culture, chronically neglected: Attending to the well being of the socially and economically disenfranchised; treating others with respect; being empathic and fair even when it draws energy from our competitive aspirations; focusing – with the seriousness it deserves – on our need for rest, reflection, novelty, and play.
The entire reflection is here.
Radical Decency Community
Originally published March 13, 2011
Central to Radical Decency is the belief that:
1. A specific set of values – compete and win, dominate and control – are pre-eminent in our culture and, thus, wildly over-emphasized in our day by day choices;
2. That the result is incalculable damage ourselves and others; and,
3. If we hope to live differently and better, we need to wean ourselves from the corrosive habits of living, spawned by the relentless emphasis on these values, replacing them with more decent ways of being.Repeating this formulation over and over, it is easy to create of pantheon of good and bad values. Respect, understanding and empathy, acceptance and appreciation, fairness and justice are good. Compete and win, dominate and control are bad.
Doing so, however, misses the point. The problem is not inherent in the values themselves. It lies, instead, in their over-emphasis and the relentless pressure to conform to their strictures.
Radical Decency puts its priority on modeling and promoting virtues that are, in our culture, chronically neglected: Attending to the well being of the socially and economically disenfranchised; treating others with respect; being empathic and fair even when it draws energy from our competitive aspirations; focusing – with the seriousness it deserves – on our need for rest, reflection, novelty, and play.
The entire reflection is here.
Friday, March 22, 2013
New Hampshire's mental health system: From leader to failure
By Annmarie Timmins
The Concord Monitor
Originally published March 10, 2013
During his 1971 inaugural address, then-Gov. Walter Peterson identified seven goals for his next term. First on the Republican’s list was improving mental health care.
Peterson wanted to stop warehousing people with mental illness at the state’s psychiatric hospital and begin treating them in local communities. “A state mental institution,” Peterson told lawmakers 42 years ago, “is, more than anything else, a symbol of failure to help people in time.”
Two decades later, the state had become a national leader in mental health care by beginning what Peterson had envisioned. Lawmakers had established 10 community mental health centers and put money into local housing and local treatment. And under the leadership of then-Gov. John H. Sununu, the state had opened a modern 316-bed state hospital in place of the 19th-century-era institution, once called the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane, that had housed nearly 2,000 people.
At the time, Donald Shumway, then director of the state’s Division of Mental Health, said the national recognition showed “our plan is really heading in the right direction.”
The acclaim would be short-lived.
Today, everyone from mental health advocates to lawmakers to Gov. Maggie Hassan describe the state’s mental health system as broken.
In a scathing 2011 critique, the federal government said mental health care here is “in crisis.” Federal officials accused the state of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by starving the community care system in favor of unnecessary hospitalization. Last year, several patients made the same allegation in a federal lawsuit against the state that the federal government has joined.
Meanwhile, people in crisis languish in emergency rooms, sometimes for days, waiting for a hospital bed. The state’s jails and prisons have become the new mental health “‘asylum,” with an estimated 65 percent of the state prison population having a mental illness, according to a prison spokesman.
The entire article is here.
The Concord Monitor
Originally published March 10, 2013
During his 1971 inaugural address, then-Gov. Walter Peterson identified seven goals for his next term. First on the Republican’s list was improving mental health care.
Peterson wanted to stop warehousing people with mental illness at the state’s psychiatric hospital and begin treating them in local communities. “A state mental institution,” Peterson told lawmakers 42 years ago, “is, more than anything else, a symbol of failure to help people in time.”
Two decades later, the state had become a national leader in mental health care by beginning what Peterson had envisioned. Lawmakers had established 10 community mental health centers and put money into local housing and local treatment. And under the leadership of then-Gov. John H. Sununu, the state had opened a modern 316-bed state hospital in place of the 19th-century-era institution, once called the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane, that had housed nearly 2,000 people.
At the time, Donald Shumway, then director of the state’s Division of Mental Health, said the national recognition showed “our plan is really heading in the right direction.”
The acclaim would be short-lived.
Today, everyone from mental health advocates to lawmakers to Gov. Maggie Hassan describe the state’s mental health system as broken.
In a scathing 2011 critique, the federal government said mental health care here is “in crisis.” Federal officials accused the state of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by starving the community care system in favor of unnecessary hospitalization. Last year, several patients made the same allegation in a federal lawsuit against the state that the federal government has joined.
Meanwhile, people in crisis languish in emergency rooms, sometimes for days, waiting for a hospital bed. The state’s jails and prisons have become the new mental health “‘asylum,” with an estimated 65 percent of the state prison population having a mental illness, according to a prison spokesman.
The entire article is here.
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