My friend, who lives in Tennessee, told me that her psychology instructor works at a facility and was explaining some of the changes there is going to be in the next couple of years to the mental health field. The thing is that she referred it to was deinstitutionalization.

It actually happened several years ago where people who had been under the care of an institution was let out to live under their own means. These people had never lived away from an institution and most of them became homeless and died. The fact was although there were some programs left available to them, most people didn't and don't go for help.

She read a statistic that claimed out of 30 million people with a mental illness...only 20% of them are actually treated! Now..they are closing some of the biggest mental institutions in the nation to build small communities for the residents there..a more unassisted living situation.

Now...from this there will be those that do not apply for residency and will be cut loose for their own devices.

How do you think that is going to effect society? Crime rise? A rise in the homeless? Here is a local article, that she found about her particular state, but there are articles across the nation for these closings.

aot4tn.blogspot.com . . .

This has been a trend for decades. It kicked off in the 1960s in California. Berkeley and the surrounding area (just using it as an example because I'm familiar with the area and issue) shut down MAJOR state-run psych facilities. Now the new students at Cal wonder why there are so many mentally ill homeless on the streets...
From docs.google.com . . .

To the extent that the deinstitutionalized mentally ill transfer from mental hospitals to prisons, there should be a negative within-state correlations between these populations. Using standard panel data techniques, I probe the robustness of this relationship. I find strong negative effects of hospitalization rates on prison incarceration rates. The estimation results imply that deinstitutionalization between 1971 and 1996 is directly responsible for 48,000 to 148,000 of the inmates in state prison systems in 1996. This accounts for 4.5 to 14 percent of the total prison population for this year and for roughly 28 to 86 percent of prison inmates suffering from mental illness.

So yes - increases crime, increases demand for prison space, increases homelessness.

I'm all for personal rights, which is what this trend supports, but - having done rotations in state run, long-term psych facilities - the overwhelming majority of people who are housed there NEED to be housed there, for their own sake and the sake of society.

WELL THIS SOUNDS LIKE A FABULOUS IDEA.

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

I would rant on, but I need to go get dinner now. Picture a long diatribe here about how there is a drastic need for reform in inpatient psychiatric programs, particularly long-term inpatient wards, because one-to-two week hospitalizations do NOTHING for ANYONE (save crisis stabilization). ...Therefore, closing long-term facilities = more in the same vein of stupid.

They did this in the UK back in the 1990's and they called it 'Care in the Community'

Needless to say 'Care in the Community' has become a by word for no care at all.

The trouble is mental facilities make no money and in a recession money talks.

Yes, we all know that anything, and everything, just about, all comes down to profit and no profit, and something is dumped.

It is laughable because government wastes more than anyone else, yet they are still around. LOL
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Lol, I agree, I wish I could vote a pay rise for myself when everyone else is losing their jobs.

Only a politician can do that.

My husband's retirement income went up 2 percent. Our insurance went up 6 percent. That stinks!

Yes, this trend has been around for some time. It was at least 20 years ago, maybe 30, when Colorado decided that, with the development of new drugs, the mentally ill could now successfully live in the community and be served better by outpatient services. Actually, this might have worked for some people if only there WERE any high quality outpatient services which pro-actively followed up with them. But of course what happened was the state just closed the hospitals and dumped people on the street. The outpatient help wasn't there even if an ex-patient wanted it. I read about a volunteer group who tried to take up the slack but it was a drop in the bucket. We still have a big homeless problem and not just because of the poor economy. Tennessee will regret their decision.

hummingbird wrote:

Lol, I agree, I wish I could vote a pay rise for myself when everyone else is losing their jobs.

Only a politician can do that.

Not with the 27th amendment.