Publicly funded mental health resources have suffered cuts for decades. Emergency rooms all over the country are flooded with deeply disturbed individuals waiting for treatment facilities, especially those in governmental centers.
On any given day in Las Vegas alone, hospital ERs may hold 30-40 mentally distressed patients. It may take 7-10 days before an available treatment slot is found for them. This compromises their care as well as the care of patients who need true ER care. I'm sure this situation is repeated in hospitals all over the country every day.
The homeless represent a disproportionate share of the mentally ill. But this is nothing new. In the late '70's states began deinstitutionalizing the long term mentally ill who were locked away. This was done with the promise of building and funding outpatient mental health care centers...but the promise was never kept.
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All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Winston Churchill
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