Thursday, September 11, 2003

Calculating the Toll of Trauma
New York Times story - "New trauma reawakens old trauma, or so mental health professionals have often asserted. And in the aftermath of Sept. 11, many experts predicted that the terrorist attacks would exacerbate or rekindle psychiatric problems in people with a history of post-traumatic stress disorder or other mental illnesses, and increase the demand for psychiatric treatment. But a new study has found that the use of mental health services at medical centers run by the federal Department of Veterans Affairs in New York and Washington, the cities most directly affected, did not rise after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. Marking the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, other related articles of note on trauma, PTSD and mental health issues include:

• Asian-Americans Face Cultural Barrier to Counseling, New York Times [requires registration, which is free] - "According to a study being released today by the Asian American Federation of New York, the Hamdanis were among many Asian-Americans who rejected professional therapy after Sept. 11. Even some counseling services developed for Asians were not used much more in the year after Sept. 11, the study found."
  
• NMHA Offers Tips for Coping With the Anniversary of Sept. 11. See also the NMHA press release, America’s Mental Health Still Ignored in Terrorism Response.
  
• Researchers: 9-11 to linger in lives, Ann Arbor News - "Even though two years have elapsed since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, 76 percent of Americans feel no safer from terrorism than they did immediately after jets crashed in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. The recent poll result doesn't surprise Reg Williams, a University of Michigan Medical School Psychiatry Department professor who agrees with other researchers that Americans will never get over the trauma of the attacks."
  
• Study: 9/11 Stress Declined Fast, Newsday - "The number of New Yorkers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder declined dramatically in the six months after the Sept. 11 attack, but researchers predict other mental health issues could persist, according to a study released Wednesday. The study by epidemiologists at the New York Academy of Medicine in Manhattan found that the percentage of Manhattan residents with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder dropped from 7.5 percent one month after Sept. 11 to 0.6 percent after six months."
  
• Is Trauma Being Trivialized?, New York Times [requires registration, which is free] - "...as mental health experts continue to fine-tune our understanding of how the body responds to catastrophic events, some skeptics have been questioning whether terms like 'trauma' and 'post-traumatic stress disorder' (known as PTSD) are being misused by victims, lawyers and health professionals."

  
  

57,000 Texas Children at Risk of Losing Mental Health Benefits
September 4 National Mental Health Association press release - "Despite the needs of 57,000 children who receive mental health coverage through Texas’ State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), the state is proposing to virtually eliminate mental health benefits under the program. The National Mental Health Association urges U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson to reject this alarming proposal and, in turn, discourage other states from following suit and targeting vulnerable populations in attempts to cut costs..."  
  

Senators To Offer Amendment to Increase Medical Research Funding – Increased Funds for Mental Illness Research At Stake
A call to action at the NAMI web site - "The U.S. Senate will soon begin considering legislation covering FY 2004 funding for federal agencies and programs that include important federal investments for mental illness research. This bill, known as Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill (S 1356) includes the proposed 2004 budgets for both the National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Because of tight budget constraints and a growing federal budget deficit, neither the House nor the Senate version of the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill includes sufficient increases for needed investments in research and services on severe mental illness..."  
  

Montana Hospital Overflows with Psychiatric Patients
Montana Standard story reprinted at the NAMI web site - "An overflow of psychiatric patients at Montana State Hospital pushed the facility past capacity and into a health care crisis this past week, prompting the opening of an emergency unit on campus, according to hospital Administrator Ed Amberg. Some 200 patients are shoe-horned into the state facility that's designed for 135 beds, Amberg said Friday."  
  

Muting the Obsessions
New York Times article on Dr. Katharine A. Phillips, whose written a book on body dysmorphic disorder and founded treatment programs at both the McLean Hospital near Boston and the Butler Hospital in Providence, where she is a psychiatrist at Brown Medical School. [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free].  
  

"Psychiatric patients New York sent here are fine, says Jersey"
Star-Ledger story - "Some 500 former New York psychiatric patients who have been placed in two North Jersey nursing homes are getting proper care and pose no risk to other patients, officials from the state Departments of Health and Human Services said yesterday. ... But mental health advocates in New York, while not disputing the findings, said they remain concerned about the situation, questioning why recovering psychiatric patients are being institutionalized in a neighboring state, many miles from home."  
  

Judge cites 'dramatic' progress at state hospital (Hawaii)
Honolulu Advertiser story - "Chief U.S. District Judge David Ezra yesterday said the Hawai'i State Hospital has made "dramatic" progress in the past six months, but said the mental hospital will likely miss its deadline next year to complete all of its goals. He said he would be open to extending the deadline if improvements continue. Ezra yesterday got a report from attorneys for both the state and the U.S. Justice Department, which sued the state in 1991 to improve conditions and staffing at the facility."  
  

MHC director resigns (Wisconsin)
Green Bay News-Chronicle story - "After 36 years with Brown County, most recently as administrator of the county's Mental Health Center, Earlene Ronk submitted her resignation Wednesday. ... Ronk will become nursing administrator for Jefferson County at its new 120-bed public nursing home. ... She said it has been hard to watch what has happened with the Mental Health Center, which is in disrepair. The county has debated for months whether to build a new facility, and how big and how much it should cost. The future of the facility has been a topic of much consternation for a few years."  
  

Managers lack mental health knowledge (UK)
Brief item at Croner Human Resources Centre - "A growing number of employees suffer from mental health problems and managers are unable to help them, according to a new survey by The Work Foundation. The survey was published to mark the launch of a resource pack for line managers on mental health in the workplace. Whilst almost half of employees would turn to their bosses for advice if they had a mental health problem few believed their bosses could help them and 66% of managers rated themselves as learners or novices on the subject of mental health. Three quarters of managers felt their organisations did not have adequate policies or procedures to deal with such problems."  
  

Mental health law urged (New York)
Story in the Democrat & Chronicle - "Mental-health activists urged the state Senate on Wednesday to pass a bill that would make health insurers provide more coverage for people with mental illnesses. Supporters of the bill, which they call 'Timothy’s Law,' told a Senate hearing that coverage for mental-health services should be at the same level as for physical illnesses. Under current law, most insurance plans allow only a limited number of doctor visits for mental-health patients."