Monday, October 20, 2003

Improve mental health care, access (Michigan)
Opinion column in the Detroit Free Press - "Six months after receiving failing marks across the board in a national mental health study, Michigan still has room for improvement. In April, the National Mental Health Association assigned grades to each state on three critical issues relating to care and treatment of persons experiencing mental illness. And Michigan was the only state to fail in all three measures -- mental health insurance parity (or equality), consumer managed care protections and access to medications."  
  

Mental breakdown: Embracing change, Vermont neglected its state hospital
Boston Globe story - "When federal inspectors emerged from Vermont's tiny state mental hospital this summer, they described conditions that can best be called archaic. ... During the review, the situation got worse: Within a span of six weeks, two patients committed suicide in their rooms. ... The revelations, shocking anywhere, came as a particular surprise in Vermont, a state much admired for its progressive mental health policies. Among New England states which embraced the idea of removing mentally ill people from institutions, Vermont emptied its state hospital more quickly and more completely. Vermont boasts one of the nation's most sweeping mental health parity laws, which requires insurance companies to cover mental illness and substance abuse as fully as physical illness. Most remarkably, doctors and consumers seem to agree on the thorniest civil rights question in mental health: Patients in Vermont always have the right to refuse medication, even when they're committed to the hospital..."  
  

Wanted: Mental health system (Colorado)
Denver Post editorial - "Colorado's mental health system isn't just broken. It's not just under-funded. It pretty much doesn't exist. That's one of the conclusions of a massive, privately funded study of mental health care in Colorado. According to the study, presented by The Mental Health Funders Collaborative, which includes several prominent foundations, 'There is no single mental health system in Colorado.' The 'mental health system' is actually many systems."