Mental Health

Dear Sacramento Police Department: Please Don't Kill Me!

2009-12-15T00:06:33Z

The chance of a person being killed by a police officer because he or she has a mental illness may rise due to budget cuts, lack of proper treatment and the police being unaware that the person suffers from a mental illness. If you need to call the police on a loved one or someone you know who has a mental illness because of erratic or psychotic behavior, let the police know that he or she suffers from a mental illness.

According to the Sacramento Bee, Giat Van Truong, a 35-year-old man who suffers from schizophrenia was shot to death while becoming violent with the arresting police officer. According to Sheriff Sgt. Tim Curran, the arresting officer was unaware that Giat was mentally ill, although Giat had been arrested on mental health holds (5150) several times throughout his life. It is also important to note, however, that Giat had a history of violent crimes as well. This was the third high-profile case in Sacramento County in the past two years regarding killing someone who exhibited signs of a mental illness.

In 2008 the Sheriff’s department came into contact with over 1,700 people known to have a mental illness or behaving in such a manner that it was assumed they could have a mental illness. With the lack of funding for specialized training in this area many police officers are not able to accurately determine if someone is violently resisting arrest or is scared, confused and may be psychotic due to a mental illness.

As noted by the National Institute of Mental Health:

Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 26.2 percent of Americans ages 18 and older — about one in four adults — suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 2004 U.S. Census residential population estimate for ages 18 and older, this figure translates to 57.7 million people. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller proportion — about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 — who suffer from a serious mental illness. In addition, mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada for ages 15-44. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time. Nearly half (45 percent) of those with any mental disorder meet criteria for 2 or more disorders, with severity strongly related to comorbidity.

I understand that the Police Department has many duties and there is not much money for training in the mental health field. However, it is important to consider that someone who is not acting rationally may be mentally ill and needs compassion and understanding rather than a bullet and death.

Not as Cute as Puppies

2009-11-04T21:43:44Z

I am shocked, outraged and deeply saddened by “patient dumping” which is a process of dropping off the mentally ill from a hospital to a homeless shelter without proper warning or guidance.
As mental health clinics are closing more and more due to budget cuts, the mentally ill are left out in the cold. They are not getting the help they need and are being tossed aside like trash.

It was reported on KCRA.com how a woman with a mental capacity of a three year old from Yolo County was dropped off by a taxi in the middle of the night at Loaves and Fishes in Sacramento County. She was not found until the next day because the facility was closed overnight.

Who sends a mentally ill patient out the door with a taxi or bus voucher not knowing the exact destination? Who drops off a person in need of assistance to a facility that is closed? And leaves her outside in the dark to fend for herself?

Kevin McCarty who is running for State Assembly 2010 believes that patient dumping is “morally wrong and bad public policy.” He is proposing a bill which will fight against patient dumping and allow for a hand to hand transfer of the patient to the shelter or final destination. Councilman McCarty hopes this bill will pass early next year.

I know patient dumping exists because onetime I was let out of a psychiatric hospital (not fully well I might add) with a bus voucher not sure how to ride the bus and not sure how to get home. I did not even know which side of the street to stand on.

In the Los Angeles times it claimed how some of the hospitals are still dumping mental patients off at night on Skid Row; some are still in there hospital gowns.

As a side note, it was also reported how these two little puppies were rescued from a burning mobile home. Do you think these firefighters let these puppies go in the dark and in the middle of the street to fend for themselves? I think not.

I guess the mentally ill are not as cute as puppies.

Although, we do vote.

Mental Health Blues

2009-10-19T19:49:04Z

Today with the economy failing and people losing jobs, mental health issues are rising at an alarming rate.

What I don’t understand is how there can be budget cuts in mental health, especially now and in California. Proposition 1E (which did not pass) proposed to cut mental health care in Sacramento County by $20.5 million, which would have affected several thousand people who depend on mental health services in Sacramento.

However, my mental health clinic still cut over 1,000 people from receiving mental health care even though Californians voted no on Prop 1E, (which would redirect funds allocated for mental health from Prop 63 back in 2004 to the general fund for two years). This did not stop the cuts to my clinic, and I am not sure what more cuts may be coming from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I was confused that these budget cuts still occurred even though Prop 1E did not pass. I called Darrell Steinberg’s office and spoke with a staff member who said that Gov. Schwarzenegger revised the budget in a process called Blue Penciling without the support of the legislature. He revised some issues including mental health by this line item veto and is being sued by Darrell Steinberg. A court date is set for January.

Out of the four clinics affected by these budget cuts, the clinic I go to, Northgate Point, has decided to keep me (after I wrote several letters to legislature and the Sacramento News & Review) But what about the other hundreds of people who will not be able to get mental health services there, such as medications and support? I am safe, but where will they go? Many will end up homeless and psychotic without their psychiatrist to help them. It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

I was watching Changeling last night, and the movie was about Angelina Jolie as a single mother whose son went missing, and the Los Angeles Police Department claimed to have found her son. Only, the boy was not her son, and when she furiously denied that the boy was her son, the LAPD locked her up in an insane asylum because she had made the police look incompetent. This is based on a true story of Christine Collins from the 1920s.

What is interesting is we don’t want to make the politicians look bad, but whose fault is it that we are in this fiscal mess anyway? The mentally ill? Sorry, you can’t pin this one on us!

Christine Collins changed the direction of how the mentally ill were forced into psychiatric hospitals by the police, which was known back then as a code 12. Police officers can no longer force people into psychiatric hospitals on a whim and without a court order.

Now we just take money away from programs and let those with mental health issues fend for themselves.

Sherrie