Shooting shows gaps in US mental health safety net
UNITED STATES: Mental health professionals complain their
hands are tied in two ways when they try to help people like Virginia
Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui a lack of funding for mental health services
in general, and laws that makes it tough to treat people against their
will.
They say the 23-year-old student's shooting rampage sheds new light
on flaws in the U.S. mental health system.
"Our mental health system failed this young man," said Jill Bolte
Taylor, a brain researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine in
Bloomington, Indiana.
Cho drew the attention of campus police in late 2005 amid complaints
that he was annoying women students. He spent some time in a psychiatric
hospital because of worries he was suicidal. "Funding for mental health
services in the United States has dropped in half over the past 25
years," Dr. Christopher Flynn, director of Virginia Tech's Thomas Cook
Counseling Center, told a news conference.
"We have seen, every time there's a cut in public health funding, the
first people that are cut are mental health providers, and we do our
entire system a disservice by continuing to do that."
Dr. Steven Sharfstein, past president of the American Psychiatric
Association, said the problems are both financial and legal.
"What was a red flag for me is that he was seen in a mental health
facility and held for one day. That is a symptom of the dysfunction of
our mental health system," said Sharfstein, who is president of Sheppard
Pratt Health System in Baltimore.
"If someone isn't readily seen as imminently dangerous, there is no
time and money set aside to do a more in-depth and effective diagnosis.
He may have been hiding a paranoid psychosis that with a few days of
observation might have come out."
The National Alliance on Mental Illness in a 2006 report gave the
U.S. mental health system the below-average grade of "D".
"Untreated mental health is the nation's No. 1 public health crisis,"
Michael Fitzpatrick, the group's executive director, said in a telephone
interview.
"In recent years, states like the Commonwealth of Virginia have
systematically reduced their funding for mental health services," he
added.
"The reality is that in many communities, it is impossible to get
mental health services unless you have been arrested," Fitzpatrick said.
Even if treatment is available, patients often are too sick to
believe they need treatment. And unless a patient presents an imminent
threat, many states prohibit involuntary treatment.
"Unfortunately, we live in a society that says as long as you are not
a danger to yourself or someone else you can be as psychotic as you want
to be," Taylor said.
Exceptions include states such as New York, which allow court-ordered
treatment called assisted outpatient treatment for patients who cannot
recognize their own need for care.
New York's law is named in memory of Kendra Webdale, a 32-year-old
Buffalo woman pushed to her death in front of a subway train in 1999 by
a man with severe mental illness who had a history of avoiding
treatment.
Mental health advocates fear the shooting might produce a backlash
against people with mental illness.
"Studies have shown that it is incredibly rare for someone with a
mental illness to commit gross acts of violence, especially on such a
scale as the Virginia Tech shootings," the U.S. Psychiatric
Rehabilitation Association said in a statement.
Chicago, Friday, Reuters |