Just a bit about mental health law.

[cali]

I worked for several years in the Protection & Advocacy system which provides legal and advocacy services for those with disabilities. I worked in the mental health sector.

Mental Health law is made on the state level and requirements to have someone evaluated or put on a 72 hour hold vary widely. By and large it's not easy, but it's far easier in some states than in others. It's far easier, for example, in Arizona than in Vermont.

[uppityperson]

1. interesting that state laws differ that widely. Good thing AZ had one you could hold him more easily

too bad it didn't happen

[TwilightGardener]

2. His family (AZ shooter) was the major line of defense against this happening, and they failed.

I can't imagine watching my loved ones acting as nutty as he'd been behaving for months, and doing nothing about it.

[cali]

3. yes, that looks to be the case.

[GoldenOldie]

14. Looks can be deceiving

Thanks to Ronnie Reagan, once a mental patient reaches the age of 18, a parent, spouse, etc., can no longer request or demand care for their mentally disturbed family member if the ill patient doesn't want it. Therefore seriously ill mental patients are uninsurable, have no income etc., and we no longer need to acknowledge mental illness as a disease and we have no need for the mental facilities to treat and house them. Mental hospitals have been closed in Tucson and Arizona and buildings have been combined with more profitable medical facilities. The majority of those sleeping on the streets and under bridges are mentally disturbed human beings who are either genetically prone to mental illness or sad to say many veterans who have returned with severe cases of PTSD. Our ER's are saturated with the mentally ill who have no where else to go because the mental clinics/hospitals have been closed. Because many of these patients tend to be violently disruptive to the entire ER area they are in many cases are triaged and treated before those patients who are seriously ill. Hospital ER Nurses, Doctors, Techs who have little training in severe mental health cases,if they are fortunate enough to have a Mental Health nurse on staff who can assist, can and have been injured trying to care for mentally ill patients who react dangerously. Many are looking for drugs to calm their their thoughts, a little warmth,tenderness and a meal. Mental Health care in the US is deplorable and difficult to find so when a school such as Pima Community College,Mountain View High school and the Tucson Police,etc., attempt to get help for a mental patient there is no where to go and the mentally ill individual is out in the community.


The Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin's, Glenn Beck's, O'Reilly, Hannity, etc., have built their fortunes on the vitriol they spew via the media 24/7.
The mentally ill who need an outlet to calm their mental voices listen to these rantings of the millionaire/grifters and gives the already disturbed patient the sense that he/she is not alone nor wrong with their psychotic wild thoughts.

[nolabear]

4. Well yeah, but we don't know anything about his parents. People can do, or not do, amazing things.

There's no telling how far denial will take you, and it takes many forms, from "Oh, he'd never really hurt anyone, his behaviour's not that strange, it's the influence of his friends, he'll grow out of it" etc. to just plain thought-stopping, the brain simply shutting down rather than think about the unthinkable, that your child might be broken.

But we don't even know that much. They could have any number of problems or disabilities. We'll have to wait and see.

I feel bad for them. What a horror they must be experiencing. More info might make me feel otherwise but the idea that "if it was me I'd have done something" is an illusion. (Not saying you're saying that btw)

[maritimer]

5. we don't know that yet.

Millions of families go through the hell of having an ill loved one. It can be very difficult to get someone into treatment, especially if they are 1. an adult, and 2. not displaying the signs that would allow an involuntary commitment. Not a MH expert but have seen enough of this in my own family and others. Please wait and see how this pans out.

[cali]

7. we kind of do know that. His parents were informed by the college he attended

of his behavior and that he would not be allowed back on campus until he had medical clearance. We know from area services that his parents never contacted them. And we know that in Arizona compelling someone to have a mental exam is not difficult.

[RainDog]

8. and then you have an insurance system that wants to deny them care

my ex was bipolar and I had to agree to have him committed at one point. it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. but it was also the start of his recovery from a lot of problems. it was the start - not the end - and there were many more instances in which he was in a crisis situation.

in one of them, in order to prevent him from (yet again) making a suicide attempt at home while my pre-school children and I were there, his doctor got him to agree to go into the hospital.

I had to call to inform and GET PERMISSION from the health insurance co for his treatment.

The woman at the insurance co, who had NO MEDICAL EXPERIENCE told me they didn't pay for people to go to spas...as a way to challenge his hospitalization.

The co. for which my ex worked initiated a class action suit against that insurance co for incidents like this and others (that were not related to mental health care.)

One psychologist I know simply refused to take clients who wanted to pay with insurance because those companies mandated that, for instance, teenagers who were starving themselves via anorexia, could only receive four treatment visits. This set up a situation in which a patient could then blame him or herself for not being "instantly cured" because some insurance co. made an arbitrary decision based upon no medical experience whatsoever about the course of treatment for someone with mental illness.

iow, even if the guy had gotten mental health care, the insurance co would have been working hard to make sure treatment was limited in order to maximize their profits.

....and that is one of THE major problems with mental health care in this nation.

[cali]

9. Loughner didn't need insurance to get care.

[RainDog]

10. how so?

does Arizona have a state-supported health care system that pays for treatment?

[cali]

11. every state does. every state also has federally mandated

protection and advocacy services for people diagnosed with a disability- including mental illness.

go here for info:

http://www.samhsa.gov/

[RainDog]

12. that's a huge site

and, honestly, if the information is available it makes much more sense to simply ask rather than to wade through that site.

if you could be a bit more specific, maybe, it would be helpful.

[cali]

13. SAMHSA provides funds for public community based mental health

that each state is mandated to have.

[old mark]

6. Cali, I worked for years in the PA state mental health field - some

of it in state mental hospitals. It apalls me that the lawmakers are so politically driven when they pass laws regulation hospital treatment of seriously ill people...mainly they are interested in the financial aspects of it, often at the expense of good treatment.

mark

[moondust]

15. You might be interested in this regarding Reagan and mental health.

It seems to support what you are saying, as in the last paragraph:

Reagan's social policy is best seen as an abdication. Reagan's economic policy was to adjust government regulation so that it favored business once again, and social policy was merely an outgrowth of this larger issue. While family groups and professi onal groups and patient groups did clamor for respect, the real struggle was between the state and the business community. Reagan worked to lessen the tax load for the rich, and the social policies were meant to match this goal. Business needed a more fav orable corporate climate, and Reagan worked to that end. The coalitions that were necessary for election were either gratified (the elderly) or abandoned (the poor). As for the mentally ill, certain changes that their families and practitioners wanted were gained, and the administration pointed this out. Even though these changes came about primarily through state governments and the courts, the Administration would take credit. All in all, business interests were served. Families and doctors were appeased. Patients were forgotten.

http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.004/thomas.html

Incidental note: Last night on Anderson Cooper David Gergen claimed that the Reagan bunch discharged a lot of mental patients because they felt that was better for the patients than keeping them institutionalized. Yeah right, I'm sure. :eyes:

[old mark]

16. My wife worked for state mental hospitals when that happened. The concern

was not for patients, believe me. Many people who had been in institutions for decades were given prescriptions for their medications and a few dollars and a bus ticket and left to make their way in the world with only a few contact phone numbers for support. Many wound up in jail, living under bridges or dead. The concern was for politics-they could say they were releasing people from long term captivity to freedom, but they provided NO support for people with serious illnesses and no recent experience living on their own.

It was political bullshit at its worst.

mark