Despite recent alarms to give mental health a more serious approach and to mobilize more funding to address a broken mental-health system across the country and in Minnesota, sequestration is here. According to the White House, if sequestration is fully implemented 373,000 mentally-ill adults and children across our nation will have to go untreated. Mental Health America reports that over the past three years, states across the country have had to cut approximately $4 billion in mental-health budgets — yet there are more cuts on the way with sequestration.
The Minnesota Department of Health reports that Minnesota ranks 24th among the states in the number of psychiatrists per 100,000 in the population. There is also a huge shortage of beds in mental-health wards across Minnesota — and partial-day programs have long waiting periods.
Because there are so few beds available, individuals with severe psychiatric disorders who need to be hospitalized are often unable to get admitted. Those who are admitted are often discharged prematurely and without a treatment plan.
The situation is even worse in rural Minnesota, where the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reports a shortage equal to 52 full-time equivalent practitioners in Minnesota. HRSA estimates that 1,456,036 Minnesotans do not receive an appropriate amount of mental-health services. These patients cannot receive the medication, treatment or support that would help them as they have to drive long distances to access mental health treatment. If they do not have insurance or cannot afford treatment and travel, they are forced to forgo mental-health treatment. In Anoka County, where the state’s largest mental-health hospital is located, an estimated $344, 000 in budget cuts is definitely bound to affect mental health services for vulnerable adults, adult mental health, chemical dependency and children’s mental health.
Homeless will lose social services, programs
According the Treatment Advocacy Center, budget cuts to mental health means that nearly 9,000 homeless people with mental illness across the nation will lose social services and outreach programs that put them on a path to transition to permanent homes. These issues are very troubling given the fact that a federal survey conducted in 2005 estimated that approximately 500,000 people are homeless in the United States at any given time, and one-third of those individuals have a serious mental illness. The same study concluded that, out of the percentage of mentally ill patients that do not receive mental-health treatment, 5 to 10 percent are bound to commit violent acts.
The outcomes of sequestration in mental health at this time are troubling as we could end up having increases in suicides, jailing or untreated mental-health patients turning violent. Even in the wake of some of the most troubling tragedies in our nation’s history that have been linked to a lack of proper mental-health treatment, like the Newtown tragedy, we have to endure more budget cuts. Given that one in every four Americans lives with a mental-health or substance-use condition, and more than 67 percent of adults and 80 percent of children who need services do not receive treatment, maintaining discretionary federal funding for mental-health and substance-use services is pivotal to ensure citizens have access to behavioral health care.
Substance-abuse and violence prevention
America and Minnesota cannot afford to have 1.13 million children and adults at risk of losing access to any type of public mental-health support and more than 320,000 children miss out on coordinated mental-health services, early intervention and prevention programming, and other suicide prevention services. It would be a shame to have 230,000 individuals with mental illness lose access to treatment and prevention services. It would also be devastating to have 169,000 fewer individuals admitted to substance-abuse treatment programs or to decrease the number of effective teen dating violence-prevention programs that could result in increased psychological and sexual abuse for our teens.
It is, therefore, time for our lawmakers to bury their political stands and work for the good of the country. There comes a time when the nation and its people are bigger than one’s political ideology or stand. It is time for a bipartisan unison to come up with solutions that would prevent ongoing sequestration cuts.
This is a crucial moment for Congress to find a different approach to reducing the financial deficit through a balanced approach. Mental-health and public-health programs are so important to the health and well-being of our society. Less funding for mental health will only create more problems for our nation. Cutting funding for mental health will be way too costly for mental health patients, their families and the community at large.
Caroline Kuria is a graduate student at the University of North Dakota.
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