"If you think health care in America is bad, you should look at mental health care," says Steve Leifman, who works as a special advisor on criminal justice and mental health for the Florida Supreme Co "
Fifty years ago, the U.S. had nearly 600,000 state hospital beds for people suffering from mental illness.
Today, because of federal and
state funding cuts, that number has dwindled to 40,000.
When the government began closing state-run hospitals in the 1980s,
people suffering from mental illness had nowhere to go.
Without proper treatment and care,
many ended
up in the
last place anyone wants to be." Of course, it's not just a
problem confined to the US.
posted by dave78981
on Apr 1, 2012 -
69 comments
From a NYT piece on the horrifying incompetence of NY mental homes:
On a Thursday in June 2000, Mr. Ridges returned from his job and went to his room. He encountered Mr. Chapman and the two apparently argued over rap music, the police said. Mr. Chapman pulled out a brown and gold folding knife. He lunged, stabbing Mr. Ridges more than 20 times in the neck, sternum and arm.
"Me and Greg Ridges didn't get along," Mr. Chapman told the detectives who arrested him.
When Mrs. Ridges did not receive her customary phone call from her son that day, she called the home. An employee told her everything was fine. Wary, Mrs. Ridges went to the home that night, and no one would let her in. Several hours later, police officers showed up at her apartment and told her what had happened.
I get sick of all the NYT pieces on here too, but, damn it, this is just haunting, a long visit in a demented underworld of society that most of us try to ignore. Well worth reading in its (extensive) entirety.
posted by gsteff
on Apr 30, 2002 -
3 comments
