It's not just patients on the organ transplant list in Arizona that have suffered under Jan Brewer's administration. Mental health services in the state were drastically cut in 2010.
WASHINGTON -- In the past year, Pima County, Ariz., where Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others were shot Saturday, has seen more than 45 percent of its mental health services recipients forced off the public rolls, a service advocate told The Huffington Post.
The deep cuts in treatment were protested strongly at the time, with opponents warning that they would result in a spike in suicide attempts, public disturbances, hospitalizations and brushes with the police. But according to Clarke Romans, executive director for southern Arizona's branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the state government ignored requests for relief, citing the need to implement strict budget controls.
But, as Romans told The Huffington Post, 2010 was a difficult year, particularly in Pima County. Last January, 3,000 Pima residents were taken off the public mental health system's enrollment because a diagnosis found they were not actively displaying symptoms of a serious mental illness. On July 1, another 3,800 county residents saw their coverage slashed because they did not fall below the federal poverty level. They were still allowed to get generic medications, but lost their case manager, their doctor and access to group therapy, as well as transportation and housing subsidies.
Just how big a chunk of the population in need of care did this constitute? There were 15,000 people on the rolls at the beginning of the year, Romans said, but that may be only a fraction of the population in need of help.
"These people are now turned away from services they may have had for years, and unfortunately the rate of suicide attempts hospitalizations and law-enforcement encounters have all gone up," said Romans.
"So they have cut the budget on paper, in Phoenix, but they now expect the local community, like Tucson, to increase the police, the emergency room, the response to suicide attempts, incarcerations and hospital stays," he added, noting that these services are among the most expensive a local government can provide. "It's madness."
This is not to say that Loughner would not have gone on a shooting rampage if those services hadn't been cut--there's no indication that he had sought out treatment, or that anyone near him tried to get it on his behalf. But the actions of this obviously disturbed young man can at least provide an opportunity to look at what's happening around the states as they shred the safety net in the name of austerity.
