Hurricane Victims With Mental Problems Parted From Health Care

[deadparrot]

Schizophrenics disconnected from their doctors and heroin addicts cut off from methadone treatments are among Hurricane Katrina evacuees scattered from Houston to Chicago, concerned mental health officials say.

Efforts are under way to identify and assist thousands of mental health patients and substance abusers believed to have been placed in shelters. Federal officials have distributed $600,000 in emergency grants for screenings and crisis counseling.

But thousands more are scattered and unaccounted for, disconnected from treatment, families and other support systems, advocates say. How to find and re-anchor them to stable lives are issues that may persist for weeks.

"People were just sent all over the place," said Jennifer Jantz, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), an advocacy group. "Nobody is sure where everybody is. We got calls, people looking for loved ones. People didn't know where group homes were evacuated to. We're still getting those calls."

http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/seeman091605.html

[Lindsay]

1. I'm guessing the problems will persist for months or even

years. There are bigger cracks than ever for people to fall through, and that will persist as long as the Repugs are in power.

[Bridget Burke]

2. I posted an article from the Houston Chronicle yesterday....

The problems of addicts (drugs & alcohol) are being dealt with in Houston. Drug treatment programs in Louisiana were already strained. People now in Houston will be taken care of--although OUR programs have felt the results of the Bush/Perry Governorships & the Bush Presidency. (War on Drugs, no help for addicts.)

Evacuees who went through the "big" shelters had some medical screening. But did those with mental problems have their drugs with them? Their prescriptions? And what about people in other areas. From the OP:

The dislocation of the mentally ill comes at a time when many advocates deride what they characterize as outdated and declining treatment systems. In 2003, a commission assembled by President Bush concluded that the nation's mental health system was in a "shambles," often amounting to a fragmented maze of services that provides poor care.

Will mental health systems get funding & help in coordinating their efforts? Or will Bush try to impose a one-size-fits-all program benefiting only the drug companies?