MY TURN-When Ronald Reagan was governor of California between 1967-75, he systematically dismantled the state mental health system by proposing the idea that it was a civil right not to be hospitalized if you didn't want to be, irrespective of any objective medically substantiated psychological profile.
Reagan's main motivation for doing this- supported by what has now become longstanding right-wing rhetoric of less government was to lessen the amount of money the State of California was spending on these "unnecessary services that deprived people of their civil rights," while allowing them to be free and homeless in the streets. If they knew their name, the date, and didn't want to be in a psychiatric facility, they walked. With this mandate, major psychiatric treatment facilities throughout the state were closed at significant short term savings.
Rather than invest more money at the time in dealing with the objective needs of the mentally ill in California in a timely and appropriate manner, mental health facilities were emptied and what resulted was a shift of this disabled population to our regular hospitals, jails and prison, augmentation of our homeless population, and a generally more expensive overloading of our all emergency public facilities … a rather foolish decision in retrospect.
Never considered was what organizations like Advocates for the Mentally Ill proposed. They wanted to have a local community based mental health system, where the anonymity of the existing state hospital system could be countered by a local system of mental health that offered greater continuity of care in the local community to avoid what had become the revolving door effect of continuing commitment, stabilization, release, and then subsequent re-commitment in a pattern where the window of time spent outside between commitments grew less and less.
If one goes to Department 95A of the Superior Court on San Fernando Rd., it is not uncommon to see a mentally ill person and their court appointed criminal attorney "defending" them against their family and doctors, who are trying to give the person the appropriate treatment they needed against their wills, because symptomatic of diseases like schizophrenia is a complete denial by the mentally impacted person that anything is wrong with them.
In Superior Court 95A, if the person knows their name and the date and wanted to be homeless, the court sustains their civil right to do so, even if it winds up costing society significantly more money when this person inevitably triggers the intervention of already overloaded governmental emergency services without the training or capability of dealing with the mentally ill. In times of limited budgets, this makes the jobs of police, fire, and other fire responders all the more difficult.
Now California counties have the ability to adopt Laura's Law, (named after Laura Wilcox … see photo above … who was shot to death in 2001 by a client of the California Nevada County Behavioral Health Clinic) which has been on the books for several years now. It would allow for the involuntary hospitalization of a person under very clearly defined guidelines. It is estimated that adoption of Laura's Law would reduce hospitalization of this population by 46%, incarceration by 65%, homelessness by 61%, and emergency contacts by 44%.
The projected immediate financial savings to the state will be substantial, if counties implement Laura's Law. While at the same time, this timely intervention should significantly lessen future costs of dealing with the mentally ill.
Hopefully, this time around, we will finally take any monetary savings gained from implementing Laura's Law and establish the local community based mental health facilities that are so sorely needed, instead of allowing the illness to be exacerbated by inappropriate measures that have stigmatized both the mentally ill and their families.
While this will not bring back my brother, it just might save another family from going having to go through what my family did.
(Leonard Isenberg is a Los Angeles observer and a contributor to CityWatch. He’s a second generation teacher at LAUSD and blogs at perdaily.com. Leonard can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 40
Pub: May 16, 2014
