The Lack Of Care For People With Mental Illness

Problem Statement: The World Health Association defines ‘good’ health as: “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” However, in the United States, access to care and funding for mental health care are grossly neglected and underfunded in comparison to other aspects of health care.

Over 40 million Americans have been diagnosed with at least one mental illness (NIMH 2015), and 43,000 Americans commit suicide every year (NIMH 2014), with most of those deaths deemed preventable (Mann et. al 2005).

There have been scholarly works published about both Kirkbride asylums and insane asylums in the United States in general. Dr. Henry M. Hurd, a Superintendent at John Hopkins Hospital, wrote a four-volume book called The Institutional Care of the Insane in the United States and Canada in 1916, which was one of the first comprehensive scholarly works on mental hospitals in the United States. His view is important, as he admonished the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane (AMSAII), a group of superintendents over insane asylums, to change its name and focus, as it had changed since Kirkbride’s time. He gave histories of these mental hospitals, and his figures are used through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Another earlier source on this subject is Margaret McCulloch’s “Founding the North Carolina Asylum for the Insane.” Her article focused on North Carolina and

Oregon has a shortage of mental health clinicians and prescribers resulting in inadequate access to mental health services. Oregon has 90 designated Mental Health Care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA) (Kaiser Family Foundation [KFF], 2016). However, this data does not include Psychiatric Nurse Practitioners. The Portland Metropolitan Area, comprised of Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties is not designated as a Mental Health Care HPSA (Oregon Health Authority [OHA], 2013). In Oregon, Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP) and Physician Assistants are able to prescribe psychiatric medications. As of 2014, the entire state had 964 behavioral/mental health prescribers (Oregon Health

Veterans, compared to the U.S. population, have a higher risk of suicide. Suicide is a major public health concern, with suicide being the 11th leading cause of death across all ages and the seventh leading cause of death in males. Depression, PTSD, substance use disorders, access to firearms, and a history of self-harm or suicide attempts are factors that place veterans at higher risk for suicide. The increased risk for suicide among veterans has been brought to public attention, which has lead The Department of Veteran Affairs to announce the prevention of suicide to be a major national priority. In response to the increase in suicide rates, the Department of Veteran Affairs has created a comprehensive suicide prevention efforts and has collaborated with the of Defense (DoD) to develop a clinical practice guideline based on best available evidence and expert consensus (Chapman & Ibrahim, 2015).

On any given day approximately fifty percent of individual’s, or 3.5 million people, with severe psychiatric disorders go untreated. In 2013, many of those became part of the more than forty-one thousand suicides in our country. These individuals may also have been the patients who were told on a daily basis, to wait thirty days to six months to see a psychiatrist. The numbers of diagnosed mental illnesses have rapidly increased in the past thirty years but yet the numbers of mental health providers have not been able to keep up with that drastic increase. While it is unclear if there is correlation with the increased recognition of mental illnesses and the number of diagnosed illnesses, it is clear to the Center for Disease Control and

If this country is about greatness, then in conclusion everyone must strive to improve the mental wellness of others by trying to fix the American mental health care system that is without a doubt failing the mentally ill. It is evident that the mental healthcare is failing the mentally ill, because the Affordable Care Act is actually struggling to provide mental health coverage. Second, mentally ill patients are being given an unnecessary amount of drugs and that actually creates more harm than helping. Lastly, the mentally ill are being thrown into prisons and jails. If not, they are left homeless on the streets; and the main root cause of this problem is because of psychiatric hospitals closing and the failure of mental health officials.

A huge percentage of Americans suffer from various mental illnesses. 1 in 5 adults in the US, or 18.5% of the population, will experience mental illness in a given year (NAMI). With these mental illnesses come so many difficult questions. How can we improve the lives of Americans struggling with mental illnesses? What happens if these Americans become harmful to themselves or others? And how can we help and keep their families involved? The American government as well as several organizations have been trying to tackle these issues. Congressman Tim Murphy created a bill called the Helping Families in Mental Crisis Act (H.R. 2426) that seeks to “fix the nation’s broken

As medical research progresses, and new technology advances the way we treat illnesses, people with mental illnesses are left in the dark without help. Mental Health America reports that one in five adults have a mental health condition, however, 56% of them do not receive proper treatment. Unfortunately, our society still has a stigma towards people with mental health problems. Many people fear judgement and choose not to tell anyone about their condition. These attitudes stem from the public perception of mental illness as a weakness. Hearing someone say, “That is not a real illness,” or “Get over it” is inconsiderate, and prevents people from seeking further help. Suicide in our society is increasing at an alarming rate, and as long as there is a social stigma towards mental health, we cannot work toward the solution.

In this short explanation, Kime explains the responsibility The Veterans Affairs Department has for our veterans, therefore has to come up with a better plan in order to decrease rate of suicide among veterans. Providing full attention and creating a strategy is the first step the author says. She also suggests providing “mental health experts, advocates and affected families to formulate and action plan in the coming months to reduce these preventable deaths” Kime 2016). She concludes that veterans should enroll into the VA, because most veterans that committed

Mental health is a serious issue in today’s society, affecting millions of people around the world. 20% percent of Canadians of all ages will experience a mental illness in their lifetime, and approximately and 3.2 million teenagers in Canada alone who are at risk of developing depression. (cmha.ca) Suicide is a serious issue as well, being one of the main causes of death in the world. The Canadian Mental Health Association states that every 40 seconds, someone around the world is committing suicide. In Michael Thomas Ford’s novel, Suicide Notes, and Ned Vizzini’s, It’s Kind of a Funny Story, mental health is one of the major themes of the novels and they both showcase the negatives of suicide and how one can cope with their depression. Both

Therefore, they are left to care for themselves. In a study conducted by the CDC, nearly 35,000 have committed suicide in the United States in 2007. (Number of Suicides 2007, NIMH) In 2013 the number increased to around 41,000 people, a nearly 6,000 increase. Every 13 seconds someone commits suicide. (Suicide Facts, SAVE) “Only through a dialog and a clear understanding of the disease can we help those who deal every day with depression. Compassion, not complacency, is the key in helping sufferers fight to remain in control.” ( Depression Kills, Psych Central) Most people abandon those with mental illness, those who feel the most alone, and as of 2015 the rise in suicides has not stopped. Society needs to focus on individual needs, because as this rise in mental illness continues, the more diverse and complicated it

There are plenty of stories to share when discussing someone’s experience with the lack of mental health treatment. Throughout my research a couple stories jumped out at me and one of them was about a young man named Lorenzo from California suffering from schizophrenia. This was a brief story that was shared and his turn around to recovery because of the help provided. Lorenzo’s Story According to his mother, Lorenzo was a typical boy growing up in California. He enjoyed helping around the house and playing with his friends. But around the age of ten or eleven, Lorenzo’s mother noticed a change in him. He stopped spending time with his friends and began spending more and more time alone. His mother thought it might just be typical pre-adolescent changes until she came home one day and Lorenzo asked her, “Do you hear them? They’re trying to get me!” Her first worry was that Lorenzo had begun to use drugs, so she immediately took him to the emergency room for an evaluation. That’s when Lorenzo was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Over the next two decades, Lorenzo’s illness drove him to the streets where he committed petty thefts in order to survive. He spent a great deal of time in and out of jail for these offenses, but never got the treatment he needed for sustained improvement. All of that changed when he became a participant in San Francisco’s mental health court. There, working with a team of mental health practitioners and court and law enforcement officials Lorenzo was

The nationwide health promotion and disease prevention plan, Healthy People 2020, recognizes that mental health promotion and mental health reduction is one of the most significant health objectives. Statistics have indicated that mental health disorders are the leading cause of disability in United States and Canada, while suicide is the 11th leading cause of death that has killed approximately 30,000 American each year (“Mental Health and Mental Disorders”, n.d.). The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended a series of

Mental illness stigma prohibits people from getting the treatment they need, as a result suicide is highly prevalent among untreated sufferers.An instance in which this can be seen is in the statics of the individuals who commit suicide. According to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, because of stigma around mental illness, “90% of individuals who die by suicide [had an] untreated mental illness”. Since a large majority of the individuals who do commit suicide do have an untreated mental illness, it can be seen that stigma around mental illness is a very common occurrences barring people from getting the help they need. This shows that reducing stigma around mental health would save a large percentage of people from committing suicide and also allow them to feel as if they can seek professional treatment.