The mentally ill are usually the first people to be effected by budgetary cuts, and the latest ones are no exception. I'm starting a group dedicated to talking about issues that have to do with mental illness. I plan on writing a series of articles about how changes in medical coverage are currently effecting them, and their lives in general.
I don't think that even those sympathetic to the mentally ill are always aware of what's going on with them. They are a group of people with very little voice in the community. I hope that others will join, and anyone who would like to join and contribute their own diaries to the subject is welcome.
I live in Pueblo, Colorado, which has long had an institution called Spanish Peaks Mental Health Center. It is the institution serving virtually every person with mental illness in Pueblo, because all the doctors who accepted Medicare were under its umbrella. It is partially funded by donors.
Recently, nine doctors quite Spanish Peaks Mental Health Center on the same day.
The resignations were a long time in coming. The center has a massive turnover. While I was receiving treatment there, I had an average of two different clinicians a year. That's even though I went there after the housing bubble bost and the economy tanked. I always thought it really said something about how dysfunctional the place was that even in this awful economy, they still couldn't hold on to their employees.
I know a number of people with conditions like schizophrenia, and psychosis, who have been unable to see a doctor for six months or longer. People I've spoken to who worked there have complained for years about the constant political infighting that occurs within, and they have frequently used the phrase, "Spanish Peaks Time."
What it means is that when you ask when something will be done, they never give a deadline. A project will be announced, and will not be completed until years later. By the time they are done, many of the people interested in the beginning are no longer there.
You can blame a lot of things for the collapse, but I think that the root problem has always been funding. Spanish Peaks has always had funding issues, but even though the budget was tight, the changes in health care law have had the effect of trying to squeeze blood from a stone. This particular stone has been squeezed dry for the last twenty years, and the further budget cuts are obviously compromising health care.
I'm planning on writing some articles on mental illness, and I've started a group called Mental Illness in America. I welcome others who'd like to also post diaries about the subject.