A sign of the times

[slsh]

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8143042&rss=rss-wls-article-8143042

It's a sorry state of affairs when Cook County Jail has become the largest provider of mental health care in the state.

 

[JJJ]

Such an accurate and sad portrayl of how bad the mental health care system has become

 

[Wiped Out]

So sad.

 

[Hound dog]

Sad. Those who don't wind up in jail often wind up homeless or in nursing homes.

I'm not going to get on my soapbox but this is what should have been considered at length before state hospitals who used to treat and house these people were closed. Yes many, maybe even most, needed overhauled and updated and staffing changes......but to close them gave the mentally ill no place to go. Now they're feeling the backlash from that.

Not all state hospitals were the horrors they were made out to be. Many were well run facilities that truly cared for the welfare of their patients.......in the end though, even those were closed.

Even as a teen/young adult I always wondered where in the world they expected all the people who used/depended on such facilities to go.

Ugh. Ok. So much for not getting up on my soap box.

 

[AnnieO]

There is a local mental health facility in our area that just reopened, but due to a change in the law they cannot help the people who cannot help themselves, and they cannot help people on medicaid, either.

Sigh.

 

[DammitJanet]

They cant help people on medicaid? Just what insurance company on this planet is going to pay for mental health institutionalization? The only one that has ever done more than 30 days is medicaid! Maybe someone has managed to get 60 or gosh call me crazy if you have gotten 90 I will probably eat my hat but I doubt anyone has ever gotten long term care out of anyone for mental health because you would be mentally ill long before you could buy a long term care policy.

Im glad I am going to kill myself before I get old enough to need long term care.

 

[keista]

Sadder yet is the thought that if they actually assessed the other 80% for mental illness, they'd find that at least 50% were suffering from some sort of diagnosis-able condition.

 

[Shari]

It's very sad. I read about how this came about a couple of years ago in a book about the deinstitutionaluzation of mentally ill.
Thank a lawyer and a loophole...