Despite being home to more psychiatrists per capita than almost any other state, Massachusetts forces thousands of mentally ill people to wait for help or do without care altogether because of funding shortages and confusing bureaucracies, according to a gloomy national report card on public mental health services.
The report, compiled by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, gave Massachusetts a ''C-." That was slightly higher than the national average of ''D," but well behind neighboring Connecticut, which along with Ohio ranked highest in the nation, with a ''B." The advocacy group said Massachusetts is making progress, including plans for a new state psychiatric hospital to replace two crumbling facilities, as well as efforts to make mental health services more consumer-friendly.
However, with roughly 10,000 mentally ill people on a waiting list for a case manager to help them get treatment, alliance officials said mental healthcare in Massachusetts remains ''grossly underfunded."
''We should be held to a higher standard. A 'C-' is nothing to be proud of," said Toby Fisher, executive director of the alliance in Massachusetts. ''If you look at receiving mental health benefits as opposed to health benefits, it's substantially more difficult."
Massachusetts Mental Health Commissioner Elizabeth Childs acknowledged the criticisms, saying, ''It's clear we have work to do." But she said the state is moving in the right direction for the 24,000 extremely low-income people who rely on the state for mental healthcare. Childs, a child psychiatrist described in the National Alliance report card as ''one of the state's best hopes" for improvement of mental health services, said the state has reduced the backlog of patients waiting for housing and invited patients and family members to help make the mental healthcare system easier to use.
Based on a review of 39 aspects of mental healthcare, the alliance gave failing grades to eight states and a ''D" to 26 more. The cost of such poor performance, the report found, is a rising number of people with mental illness in jails and prisons or showing up in emergency rooms when their illnesses reach the crisis point.
-Adapted from ”Mental health services criticized; Advocacy group says state falters” By Scott Allen, The Boston Globe, March 1, 2006 at www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2006/03/01/mental_health_services_criticized/
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