Mental health program helps some, denies others

[Rose Siding]

snip>
The system categorizes clients and dictates the kind of treatment they receive at state-financed community mental health centers. It is meant to give the most severely mentally ill people meaningful care that allows them to become healthy and self-sufficient.
...
But there is a cost. Thousands of people are being turned away from the centers because they don't meet the more stringent eligibility criteria.

Since Sept. 1, about 17,000 of the approximately 130,000 people who were receiving care at the centers have been deemed ineligible for services. Statistics from some centers show large numbers of potential clients also are being turned away.

Experts say many of those people are ending up in emergency rooms because they have nowhere else to go.
...
According to the report, Texas ranked 49th in the nation in spending for mental health services in 2002.
Even before the 2003 cuts, community mental health centers said they had nowhere near enough money to help everyone seeking their services. As a result, the centers gave most people minimal services that often had little effect.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/3072008

[Bellamia]

1. "Free" Mental Health Care........

may be as near as your computer! There are seveal agenciees, groups, that offer excellent care for little or nothing, one being www.Recovery-inc.com, which I work with as a volunteer.
This not to exonerate those responsible for cutting budgets, just to give a little hope perhaps, that there is another way.

[EFerrari]

2. Mental health services in this country are a scandal.

When we lived in Los Angeles, one of my family members didn't recieve one minute of appropriate therapy or medications monitoring in 18 months. I actually wrote a book about the experience. But the point is, the largest mental health clinic in California provides NO TREATMENT for its clients.

on edit: And these are the people who make it through the screening process!

These folks are mostly diverted to the jail system. L.A. County Jail is the largest provider of "services" in the world. :(

[Conservativesux]

3. Thanks to Ronald Reagan who started the trend as Governor.

[EFerrari]

4. Actually, he just franchised it. Joan Didion's last book

has a whole chapter about CA, the prison system, and how we have a long history of jailing people with mental health problems.

Reagan just made them homeless as well.