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--></style><title>Re: [Vision2020] Lewiston Letters: Two
Topics</title></head><body>
<div><tt>For non Daily News readers, here is my Town Crier column from
this week on the topic of funding mental health programs.</tt></div>
<div><tt><br></tt></div>
<div><tt>m.</tt></div>
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<div><tt>****</tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000">TOWN CRIER II: Community mental health
programs are essential<br>
<br>
By Mark Solomon</font></tt><br>
<tt><font color="#000000"></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000">Wednesday, June 6, 2007 - Page Updated
at 12:00:00 AM</font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000"><br></font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000"><br>
Two-and-a-half weeks have now passed since the tragic shootings of
Officer Lee Newbill, Crystal Hamilton and Paul Bauer. Wracked in
grief, our community has again revealed why I call Moscow home: When
times are hard we give of ourselves, of our love and caring.<br>
<br>
The support of each other through tough times is, for me, the real
test of a community's strength. It is a rare strength, to be
appreciated. Another test comes in the aftermath of tragedy when it
becomes appropriate to ask questions of how such events can be avoided
in the future. Many letters to the editor have come in with analyses
and suggestions. For my part I would like to provide a little bit of
the recent history of mental health funding in this country as my
contribution to this ongoing discussion.<br>
<br>
Two decisions made 26 years ago have imperiled our mental health
system. In one of his first acts as president, Ronald Reagan killed
the Community Mental Health Act prepared by Congress to replace the
expiring federal statute that had established a national program of
mental health services. Two months later, he eliminated all direct
funding for state mental health programs, lumping mental health in
with 82 other federally supported programs, from job training to
public transportation, in what became known as state block grants.
Total funding for programs included in the grants was reduced 37
percent from the previous year's program budgets, forcing states to
decide how programs would be cut. Support of mental health programs, a
service to a largely politically powerless constituency,
plummeted.<br>
<br>
At the same time, a well-intended policy shift was underway on how to
provide treatment to the mentally ill. Before this shift, most mental
illness was treated in state mental hospitals that often resembled the
nightmare described in Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest." The decision was made to de-emphasize involuntary
commitment to state hospitals in favor of outpatient treatment in
community mental health clinics where those being treated could remain
connected, in as much as they were able, to the community they lived
in. The problem was that by emptying state mental hospitals, tens of
thousands of patients were turned out into the streets and into the
newly established community mental health clinics that were quickly
overwhelmed by demands for their services. The overworked, underpaid
public mental health professionals were reduced to prescribing
psychotropic drugs and hoping for the best as caseloads exploded,
ending any opportunity for real therapy.<br>
<br>
The states, looking to maximize the few federal dollars they were
being given, rolled their state programs into Medicaid, where their
dollars brought an additional federal matching grant. The nonmatching
funds allocated to community mental health clinics continued
shrinking. This forced many people in need of treatment to seek
Medicaid assistance, but in order to receive it they first had to be
judged disabled under Social Security guidelines, a horrendous process
for the fully able and an insuperable hurdle for the mentally ill.
Idaho, with a Legislature very much in tune with Reagan's conservative
philosophy, quickly excelled in the states' race to the bottom for
mental health funding.<br>
<br>
Nonprofits, such as the now-defunct Latah Alliance for the Mentally
Ill, tried to fill the gap, creating group homes for the mentally ill
and failing as funding dwindled away. Community hospitals like Gritman
did their best to help, providing temporary holding rooms for those in
dire mental distress. But physical health doctors and nurses were
simply not trained to handle the extremes of mental illness and small
hospitals couldn't afford to hire mental health professionals. The
rooms became another form of jail cells, or closed.</font></tt></div>
<div><tt><font color="#000000"><br>
Twenty-six years after Reagan's cuts, our jails have become our
mentally ill holding facilities. Accessible mental health programs
have all but disappeared. Police officers, prosecutors and judges have
become caseworkers with little to no tools at their disposal other
than incarceration.<br>
<br>
We once had a vision as a nation of community mental health, a vision
of health for the individual and the community at large. No one can
say whether the tragic events of two-and-a-half weeks ago might have
been prevented if that vision had held. But they might have. In honor
of those who have been taken from us, let us do what we can to see
that the right tools for addressing the needs of the mentally ill in
our midst are made available to those in need and to those who lay
their lives on the line to protect us.</font></tt></div>
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<div><tt>At 8:56 AM -0700 6/10/07, Joe Campbell wrote:</tt></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite><tt>There is an interesting letter to the
editor today in the Lewiston Tribune, by Patricia Tutty entitle
"More care needed" (p. 3F). She writes: "Society needs
to pick up the costs of mental health treatment just as it pays for
police protection." I agree.<br>
<br>
There is also an absurd letter written by George Ghiselin entitled
"Homosexuality forbidden" (2F). He writes: "In the New
Testament, he [God?] declares homosexuality to be the lowest point in
the pathway to perversion. When a culture embraces homosexuality,
that's the end of the line." Ghiseline cites no Biblical
authority for this claim; he only mentions a book written by a
contemporary author, claiming that the fall of Rome was due to the
fact that "14 of the last 15 emperors were homosexual." This
strikes me as nuts.<br>
<br>
Two letters, two causal claims. One seems to me to be spot-on, the
other crazy. My guess is that someone with a different political
perspective would think differently. What do you think?<br>
<br>
--<br>
Joe Campbell</tt></blockquote>
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