Topic: 
Pownce it!
Let’s compassionately reflect a moment as we summarize the recent violent massacres by guns across America during the past decade.
There is the most recent Stephen Kazmierczak, the 27-year-old “outstanding student” at Northern Illinois University (NIU), who gunned down and killed five of his classmates and wounded 15 others before killing himself. He was not considered a stereotype serial killer, but he was being treated for a mental health condition.
As was the case also for the 18-year-old gunman Sulejman Talovi, who killed five and wounded four at the Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square Mall earlier in the year.
Then there was 23-year-old Latina Williams who killed two students at the Louisiana Technical College in Baton Rouge before killing herself.
The most tragic campus carnage currently for the American public is by Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virgina Tech before committing suicide.
Then in 2005 there was Jeffrey Weise, a 17-year-old student at Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minnesota, who killed seven people including a teacher and a security guard before committing suicide. He had also killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend at his home before shooting at the school.
Nor can be forgotten the well studied massacre by two 18 and 17-year-old students respectively, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others, before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Littleleton, Colorado in 1999.
There are more, but the point has been made there have been too many. One is too many!
Candlelight vigil for Salt Lake City’s Trolley Square shooting
U.S. Federal Government polices can and should influence mental health care access and “better” utilization, but they have been argubly hog-tied by downsizing initiated by Reagonomics of the Ronald Reagan 80’s.
Reagan’s”New Federalism” served as a justification for relaxed federal “interference” in state issues, including mental health policy. A shift in Reagan’s political economy was perceived as necessary to guarantee adequate business profit.
It is now time that the Federal Government re-evaluate how it can once again provide more domestic health care to the American People that need it, in order to prevent tragedies like we have recently seen on college campuses and the like across America from people with mentally ill conditions. This may have been preventable !
It becomes increasing difficult for the Federal Government to justify to the American people inadequate services normally performed by government when national job growth is dismal and inflation increases dramatically,or specific economic sectors are adversely affecting the national economy.
Reagan had issues with mental illiness, not just down-sizing government that were publicly documented during his term as California Governor. It is known as deinstitutionalization. The most prolific example of Reagan’s ignorance of mental illness and Government’s role in not letting people who can not adequately care for themselves fall thru the cracks is his busing incident as retaliation to a Federal lawsuit brought against him and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court by certiorari denial.
The Federal District Court held as a matter of law that Ronald Wilson Reagan was guilty of gross misconduct, and ORDERED that the mentally ill population be reduced to the level it had been when he took office.
So Reagan called the state prisons near designated mental hospitals and ordered that buses be sent to them on a specific morning. A list of fourteen thousand non-violent mental patients was prepared. Mental patients were picked up and taken to their resident counties, and put off the buses in front of their county Federal courthouse. Each patient was given “one” dollar bill. They were to carry only their personal items from beside their bed, and the clothes they were wearing that August day.
The court order was satisfied and Ronald Reagan had won.
When the Republican Governor’s Convention met in September of the very same year as the bus incident, Ronald Reagan was the conservatives point man. He gave a speech explaining why mental health hospitals should be torn down and why there was no place in government for mental health treatment, or any other health treatment.
That same winter, more than 250 homeless were found frozen to death in northern California. Most were still wearing the same cotton clothing they were in when they left the bus after their ordered release from mental institutions back in August of the previous summer.
Much has transpired since Reagan, but now The George Bush Administration has caused renewed public concern as Walter Reed Army Medical Center neglect warranted a Congressional investigation. The most recent Bush administration’s absurd argument against adequate health care comes from within a recent lawsuit that accuses the Federal government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Bush Administration maintains that the law entitles veterans only to “medical care which the secretary (of Veterans Affairs) determines is needed, and only to the extent funds … are available.”
This Federal lawsuit will be joined March 7th 08’ at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, who denied the Bush Administration’s request last month to dismiss the suit. While the case is pending, the plaintiffs want Conti to order the government to provide immediate mental health treatment for veterans who say they are thinking of killing themselves and to spend another $60 million on health care.
At issue is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates 12 percent to 20 percent of those who served in Iraq suffer from PTSD. A 2004 Army study found 16.6 percent of those returning from combat tested positive for the disorder.
Individuals suffer from PTSD if they relive the trauma, experience emotional numbness, isolation, depression, substance abuse, and memory problems. These often lead to job instability and marital troubles.
An excellent non-government advocate for better national mental health care is The National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI). NAMI understands and supports the importance of linking public-sector mental health expenditures with positive outcomes.
NAMI also has done a comprehensive study on mental illness within the U.S. and created a grading system to portray their findings on a state-by-state basis. The national average grade is D. Five states receive grades in the B range. Eight receive Fs. None received As.
NAMI’s report entitled “Standards for a Quality Mental Health System - A Vision for Recovery” describes the elements of what they believe constitute high-quality services for people with serious mental illness.
Depression is a widespread chronic illness that exacts a significant toll on America’s health and productivity. It is an illness that is the leading cause of disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44 according to the (World Health Organization - 2004).
In 2004, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the United States (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), and third among individuals 15-24. Each year, roughly 30,000 Americans take their lives, while hundreds of thousands make suicide attempts (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention).
Congress should act at once in order to follow NAMI recommendations to properly care for and reduce mental illness within our lifetime.