Wednesday, July 23, 2003

News related to mental health in the last day has been dominated by coverage of and reaction to the final report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (see the related posting here yesterday for links to the report) - the most significant public document on mental health since the 1999 Report of the Surgeon General on Mental Health. Subsequent news stories and statements include:

• President's Commission Offers Prescription for Broken Mental Health System; Organizations Call on Bush, Congress to Take Action - includes responses from representatives of the Bazelon Center, NASMHPD, NAMI and the NMHA (US Newswire)
  
• APA Applauds Final Report of President's New Freedom Commission On Mental Health Statement by Thompson Sec. of HHS Regarding the Report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health (US Newswire)
  
• Experts Available To Discuss Presidential Commission's Report on Mental Health (Business Wire) Disarray Found in Mental Health Programs (Washington Post)
  
• Major Change in Mental Health Care Is Urged (New York Times - viewing NYT resources requires registration, which is free)
  
• Mental health care needs overhaul, says presidential panel (Boston Globe) Report calls for coherent US mental health system (Reuters News)
  
• Panel calls for overhaul of mental-health system (Seattle Times) Overhaul Urged for Mental Health System (ABC News)
  
• America's Mental Health Care System 'Beyond Repair' (Health Day)

Please send along links to any related press releases or other resources that may be of interest to readers via email.

  
  

Bill slashes Medicaid mental health funds (Texas)
Story in The Monitor - "A bill passed June 10 cuts counseling services from Medicaid recipients, including services from licensed psychologists, marriage and family therapists, social workers and licensed professional counselors. Medicaid recipients will only be able to see psychiatrists."  
  

Treating kids' mental health
Los Angeles Times article reprinted at the News Journal (Delaware) - "Doctors are diagnosing mental illness in children at younger ages than ever, including in those barely out of diapers. The diagnoses include diseases once thought to appear almost exclusively in adults and adolescents, such as major depression and bipolar disorder, and have prompted a surge of new research in preschoolers. Treatment is surging, too. The number of very young children who take psychiatric drugs has more than doubled in the past 15 years, a recent study found. But this push to illuminate the earliest signs of mental trouble has exposed serious dilemmas about the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatry's youngest patients...."  
  

Budget cuts blamed again for jail stays (South Carolina)
Story in The State - "Budget cuts - not administrative mistakes - were the primary cause of lengthy jail stays last year for mentally ill inmates waiting for state hospital beds, the state mental health agency's director said Tuesday. George Gintoli backed away from comments he made in news reports Sunday that 70 patients had not been processed properly by the agency's Forensic Review Board. He said Tuesday those delays were caused by deep budget cuts that affected the entire staff."  
  

Mental heath breakdown: spiraling downward on the streets
Post and Courier (South Carolina) story reprinted at the NAMI web site on the increasing number of the mentally ill who have nowhere to go for help.