Mental Health Refore: What It Would Really Take Essay

In the video, “The New Asylums”, it demonstrated how deinstitutionalization has left thousands of mentally ill patients in the hands of the prison system. As the mental health hospitals closed down, the police department and prison system has become responsible for the mentally ill people that are on the streets. There was a firm point made about the release of mentally ill patients- “When hundreds of thousands of mentally ill are released, they do not magically become healthy. They went to the streets, became homeless, and turned to a system that cannot say no.” The video also stated that today, there are nearly 500,000 mentally ill people being held in jails and prisons throughout the country. Furthermore, there was no safety net for those

Mental illness is nondiscriminatory, can affect any person and transcends all social boundaries. As a result, the issues surrounding mental illness have become common discussion pints among policymakers dedicated or required to formulate solutions around providing the long-term care needed by many patients. Healthcare reforms and changes to the systems that provide services to those living with mental illness and funding for services to the facilities providing care have become major social issues (Goldman, Morrissey, Ridgley, Frank, Newman, & Kennedy, 1992). The reason for this is primarily how it can affect a market economy and how much of a burden diseases of the mind can be in a country such as the United States. According to the 1991 Global Burden of Disease study conducted by the World Health Organization mental health burden accounted for “more than 15% in a market economy such as the U.S.” (The Impact of Mental Illness on Society, 2001). The study also states that for individuals over the age of 5, varying forms of depression are the leading cause of disability. A more recent study indicates that mental illness in general is found in more than 26% of the United States adult population, of which 6% are severe and limit the patient’s ability to function (Martin, p. 163. 2007).

Almost half of the population in the US are affected by mental health conditions every year. A diagnosable mental illness affects about 43 percent of the U.S. population at some point in their lives. 75 percent of youth are left with no or insufficient treatment. If mental illness is recognized early on, it can help citizens avoid large medical bills down the road and could help lessen the amount of homelessness, unemployment, suicides, shootings, bad decision making, etc.

Evaluation and treatment of the mentally ill population has developed from confinement of the mad during colonial times, into the biomedical balancing of neurological impairment seen in these modern times. There were eras of mental health reform, medicalization, and deinstitutionalization sandwiched in between (Nies & McEwen, 2011). Regardless of the stage of understanding and development, communities have not been completely successful in dealing with and treating persons who are mentally unwell. Fortunately, treatment has become more compassionate; social and professional attitudes have morphed into more humanistic and

What is left is that we have many citizens who are mentally ill and are not receiving treatment. However the patients who are able to receive treatment are only able to have some treatment covered. Health insurers are responsible for covering the immensely large cost of substantial treatment, a mixture of medication and therapy; since therapy is highly priced, less reliable, and time consuming; patients typically do not receive treatment for therapy. Health insurers would much rather cover medication because it is cheaper, it heals patients faster, and it is more reliable than therapy. However, medication is not made to heal, but to only coax symptoms of a mental illness (Sandberg).

Do you know that between 1955 and 1998, we have about 558,000 patients dropped to 60,000 patients in our country and state mental hospital? During this time, there have a national shift between state hospitals and community-based facilities in mental health treatment, it’s called deinstitutionalization. In 1965, the Congress has created Medicaid. It is a payment for people who are in community mental health centers. In addition, President Jimmy Carter had signed the Mental Health System Act in 1980. It provided grants in a straight line to community mental health centers, but the time of fund is very short. Because when President Ronald Reagan is on the place, he cuts one third of spend to federal mental health. According to The New

Mental institutions are failing all over the country because of the government. These institutions are having financial cuts because they are known to be “too expensive”. And, because these programs are failing the only solution for the mentally ill are the community based health care centers. The government should reevaluate what they spending money on because this is one of many huge factors in the United States causing homelessness.

Mental illness refers to all diagnosable mental disorders defined as “health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning.” (Williams & Torrens, 2008, p. 221) With one in every five American adults experiencing mental illness, the resulting economic burden exceeds $300 billion per year to include approximately $100 billion in direct health care expenditures, $24 billion in disability benefits, and $193 billion in lost earnings. (Insel, 2008) This estimate is conservative as it excludes the components of incarceration, homelessness, comorbid conditions, early mortality and the incalculable costs to families that absorb much of the financial and emotional burdens of these illnesses. Despite the fact mental illness contributes over 6% to the nation’s health care spending; the United States (U.S.) mental health system has historically lacked integration with physical medicine and public policy support. (Insel, 2008)

According to stateline.org, “In 2014, 43.6 million adults had a mental illness... Fewer than half of these people received treatment” (Ollove). Mental health disorders are a growing epidemic in the United States. Tens of thousands are diagnosed each year, however few decide to seek treatment. Costly medications and treatment options are often to blame, as they are difficult for patients to afford. Mental health care coverage should be included in all health insurance plans because mental health disorders should be treated the same as any physical illness, it benefits society as a whole, and many mentally ill patients cannot afford necessary medication or care.

Imagine being diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia. Imagine having no control over the voices in your head or the hallucinations that seem as if you are having a nightmare when you are actually awake. Imagine feeling scared and hopeless because your mind is out of touch with reality. Imagine being given the prognosis “grave” meaning that, best case scenario, you would live in board and care the rest of your life with a possibility of working menial jobs. How would you cope with that? Would you give up? Or would you try to work through it? Hundreds of people are diagnosed with mental illnesses such as schizophrenia every year. As one can infer, the only way a person suffering from a mental illness can become healthy again is through having psychiatric help which can be nearly impossible to find in some states. More specifically, Iowa has recently been suffering from a shortage……….. Even though Iowa has had a major decline in the number of mental institute beds available, this should be changed so that people battling mental illness are treated until they are healthy enough to live independently within society.

The basis of such a policy was ill founded, and clearly, the results are not as were intended. However, despite vast improvements and numerous breakthroughs in the fields of psychological and psychiatric treatments, as well as medications for a myriad of mental illnesses, our nation continues to ignore this epidemic. Without question, it is essential that we, as a nation, begin to develop and implement some sort of re-institutionalization and treatment programs.

It’s clear to see that even if they aren’t getting treatment they do need it and should not have to suffer because of money. This means that it is so critical that health insurance companies start to follow the laws and increase the number of companies that pay for mental health treatment. The, maybe one day, if the laws if the companies start to comply to the laws maybe the number will do down to 1 in 4 suffer from mental illness in 5 years. Then maybe 1 in 3 in 10 years and so on. My goal is that less and less people every year don’t have to suffer from mental

If these people don’t have health insurance, their problems won’t go away. They will just be forced to find their care elsewhere, in ways that are both more harmful to them and to us. Institutionalization is expensive. Cook County Jail is already the largest provider of mental health services in the city of Chicago, and that will only increase if people lose their insurance coverage. Martha, and my many other patients like her, costs taxpayers far less by engaging in regular outpatient treatment rather than being hospitalized for days at a time several times a year. The human cost is far greater. Not only is Martha’s treatment less costly, she is flourishing in a way that she could not have imagined two years ago when I first met her. But she

Mental illness has been a social problem of this country for years however the way government has addressed the issue has been inadequate. This bill addresses the struggle that families have in finding care for their loved ones. The ineffective polices and antiquated programs that have been in place to care for the mental ill. Mental illness is a social problem that does not discriminate based on age, class, or ethnicity. The way physicians address and handle individuals and families with mental illness when untreated imposes severe burdens on the economy. The extraordinary delay in responses results in a mass of suffering.

But what happens when that is cross-examined? When people who are mentally ill are being thrown out of these establishments due to lack of funding resources or what have you, there is a word for it and it is called “deinstitutionalization”, and it has happened and will continue to at this rate. “Deinstitutionalization has two parts: the moving of the severely mentally ill out of the state institutions, and the closing of part or all of those institutions. The former affects people who are already mentally ill. The latter affects those who become ill after the policy has gone into effect and for the indefinite future because hospital beds have been permanently eliminated” (Torrey, 1997). Patients, or former patients in this case, often have severe disorders and are left either to their families or on their own to cope with illnesses which they could not possibly cope with on a day to day basis while lacking proper care. As a matter of fact, a study done reports that nearly 60% of deinstitutionalized patients had been afflicted with Schizophrenia, 15% with Alzheimers or other related brain diseases, and another 15% with depressive illness. Not even mentioning the other patients, who were reported to have even more threatening conditions including drug addiction with loss of brain function, Autism, retardation, so on and so forth. These helpless individuals not only were receiving shoddy