Corruption in mental health industry prevents necessary treatment
current Treatment of mental illness is ineffective, wasteful of public funding
Public psychiatric services have long been suppressed by a corrupt mental health industry, whose value systems and accountability have hurt thousands of mentally ill people and the people around them.
In June, Congress introduced the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act to address the inefficiency of the mental health system in the United States.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, mental health programs will receive $172 billion in federal and state taxpayer funds as a result of the act. However, only a third of this financial grant goes to mitigating issues related to homelessness, incarceration, arrest, and hospitalization of seriously mentally ill patients.
The medical treatment of mentally unsettled individuals should involve caretaking in their day-to-day lives. Instead, people who have extreme mental health challenges are more likely to be arrested and suffer time in prison.
To solve this problem we should be questioning whether current legislation offers improvement of federal privacy laws, expansion of the mental-health workforce and facilitation of quality treatment of patients with severe mental health problems.
The current mental health system has turned into a big industry that coordinates the federal programs and various agencies in mental health, education, substance abuse, addiction and law enforcement. However, it has hardly contributed to the improvement of the nation’s mental-illness treatment system.
It has spent more funds on improving the behavioral health of all Americans rather than treating patients with serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression.
“It is an unfortunate case when the healthcare system is charged with deciding which group of people won’t be receiving help,” said junior and psychology major Ro Lutenbacher.
The cause of this problem is an inability of mental health services to recognize that the total number of individuals with severe and persistent mental disorders has increased with the increase of wider societal trends, such as the growth of mass shootings, homicides and other violent acts.
According to National Review statistics, solving this problem could help to reduce “164,000 adults with serious mental illness who are homeless; 365,000 who are in jails and prisons; 770,000 who are on probation or parole; 95,000 who should be hospitalized.”
Although several studies suggest that money distributed for preventative, or behavioral, care of all mentally ill patients is cost-effective, it is often true that the government ends up spending more money on supporting shelters for homeless and keeping inmates with psychiatric problems in prisons.
“Preventative healthcare is important in many ways, but there are very few to no resources given for curative health care of seriously mentally ill (people) who are put into jails or mental health institutions because they are danger to society,” said junior Tasmia Zafar, biology and health science double- major. “They deserve to be treated.”
This issue should compel the attention of politicians and lawmakers to propose adequate treatment reforms and address the current state of mental health care in the United States, considering patients with life-threatening and severe mental disorders.
Congress should allocate more funds to a curative type of care rather than preventative treatment of people with mental illness. The crisis in American mental health care can be addressed by replacing the current mental health care industry with an efficient and transparent health care system that focuses not on behavioral prevention but on curing and treating diagnosed mental illness.
ANGELINA • Aug 21, 2019 at 2:20 am
I find it so appalling that many with mental Health issues are targeted for there medications, there apartments for drug dealers to prey on them. They’re manipulated and abused. No family or friends to insure there medications are not stolen, that they aren’t protected from drug dealers using their apartment that are paid for by a payee. Yet, no one protects them from predators who prey on their mental illness status. It’s a shame. Here in Tucson, Arizona more than half the mental Health Provider are on drugs themselves clean up to the very top. I spoke with a drug dealer who got his liquid methadone from mental Health Provider workers. Stealing from the taxpayers. There’s no investigation because it’s rampant through the 501c3 housing community that helps these people. They don’t get help because of the Corruption in Mental Health Provider and the Low income housing community. If they did a full scale investigation on Tucson’s mental Health Provider and the so Called low income housing or sober living housing the Nation would be in shock. I hope someday our Government stops throwing away money and checks these people out. It’s a total racket of drugs and drug dealing weasels who claim to be helping them. It’s so very sad. You can’t trust anyone in this field. So how can they help those who suffer and need help with such Corruption? Cleanup the mess. Whose in charge to do this? No one.
Laura • Oct 3, 2015 at 6:13 am
By 2020, depression will be the #2 cause of premature death globally (WHO). Depression is an extremely serious condition, and too many pills and potions are being thrown at it in an attempt to make money, while never tackling the root causes.
It is a shame that more natural treatments for depression such as the Destroy Depression System http://goo.gl/0k8Qur don’t get the exposure they deserve. It teaches natural steps which anybody can do and has helped thousands.
Diane • Oct 2, 2015 at 2:01 pm
Society just needs to accept the mentally ill people and move on to do something to help them, instead of playing the constant blame game for violence in our country. Any person who has a mental illness deserves to be loved, have friends, have family, have a roof over his or her head, a good nights rest, nutritious foods, proper medical care and medications ect. just like any other person in this country deserves also.
The US is perfectly fine if these people have none of the above because we are allowing medical facilities for mentally ill for patients to be dropped off into the streets when his or her time is up from a treatment facility, if they have no friends or family to help them. They are 100% on the streets because they are homeless. Shame on us!
Every person who doesn’t not have a family member or friend who can help them in any form because people have given up on them, then this is when it absolutely has to become the states problem. The states and the government combined funding assistant is not doing enough to help the people who are 100% helpless because they have no one.
The states with the help of the federal government funding as well, should be deeming people homeless as they are leaving any hospital facility for all people who have to fend for themselves, to make sure they are not put out onto the street and find them a place to live. They need to go into group homes or re-open back up state mental institutions to where these people are not on the streets. If they don’t harm themselves, they will harm someone else. When a person is let out onto the street out of these facilities, they are on drugs, they are unrested, they are getting used to medications and they need to be placed in safe haven places to get the ongoing and constant treatment and medications that they will need to allow them to live a sustainable life just like everyone else.
These people are no different from anyone else in society in needs, it’s just that these are the most vulnerable people who require the most attention, medical needs, constant medications and sustainable housing needs and society just needs to accept that the price is going to be high to pay for it all. Everyone in society, states and government needs to decide what is more important in life, which is the safety of our country or losing precious loved ones continually.
Reality is you have to accept, help and love everyone and that is the “Mentally Ill” also. Please pray for them and their families. Please pray that our county will finally come to common grounds and do something that is meaningful by helping these people.
God Bless.