State funds for mentally ill woefully lacking
Although we’ve gotten a lot better about it in recent years, there’s still a terrible stigma associated with mental illness, even in the South, despite Flannery O’Connor’s general assertion that we tend to show off that type of thing down here, as opposed to Yankees, who do just the opposite.
The most unfortunate and erroneous part of the stigmatization is that somehow mental illness is a character flaw, a weakness, one that reflects poorly on the individual and his or her family.
The truth is, as with alcoholism, if one looks deeply enough, there will be mental illness in almost every extended family. One of my own first cousins, for example, was a brilliant young man who ended up a tragic suicide at age 27. Another, a Stanford graduate, developed debilitating mental illness at midlife and was crippled by it for the rest of his natural days.
And, let’s face it, there are more than enough Charleston “eccentrics” who flirt with it and yet manage just fine. Ring a bell, anyone?
Mary B. Morrison finds herself becoming a mental health advocate through a highly personalized struggle, as outlined in the following remarks.
She and her husband, Hagood, are both childhood friends of mine, and wish to use this space as a mechanism to raise awareness. She writes (in part and edited for brevity):
“From 2009 through 2012, the mental health care budget in South Carolina has been cut by 39.3 percent. These cuts exceed every other state in the nation. I, like so many parents, children, siblings, and caregivers, am struggling to find some sort of help for a loved one with mental illness.
“There is such an incredibly large disparity in consumer services between private pay and public services. Unfortunately, private pay is out of reach for the majority of South Carolinians and our system for public services has been stretched to the breaking point.
“Over the past seven years, we have been to numerous psychiatric offices and mental health facilities and this huge disparity can be seen just by spending a few minutes in a waiting room.
“The waiting room of a private-pay psychiatrist who does not file insurance is similar to that of a spa. The waiting room is small. There is seating for four. Lovely upbeat music hums from Bose speakers. The scents of vanilla and freesia waft through the room. All very charming — until you get your bill. If you are so lucky to afford a private pay psychiatrist, then you may be able to send your mentally ill loved one to any number of prestigious private rehabilitation programs throughout the country. But these will run anywhere from $10,000 to $60,000 monthly. So long savings and retirement! The rest of us lacking unlimited resources find themselves in a different type of waiting room entirely.
“The Charleston County Mental Health Clinic is a handsome building off Glenn McConnell Parkway. A group of people is usually congregated at the entrance. The well-appointed waiting room seats about 40. On our last visit, a woman lay on a couch across from us, asleep with a coat over her head. There was a tall, middle-aged man who continually announced that his name was ‘Czar Casablanca’ in a hauntingly deep voice. This was disturbing to our loved one.
“At MUSC’s Institute of Psychiatry, the waiting room wasn’t much better, but the issue wasn’t so much that as (it was) coping with early hospital discharge before discernible evidence of clinical improvement.
“I don’t blame these clinics and hospitals, but rather the lack of funds. Programs like Charleston County Mental Health and MUSC don’t have the resources to adequately care for the mentally ill because the state doesn’t provide enough money.
“I am highly impressed with the dedication and commitment of most of the doctors, nurses, and staff that I’ve met over the years and even more impressed that they’ve operated with almost 40 percent less funding over the past three years.
“Unfortunately, with the cut budget, many services are only being used to treat psychiatric emergencies and not the underlying mental illness. These emergencies cost upward of $2,400 a day! If these clinics and hospitals were given the proper resources, they could treat the underlying problems for only a fraction of the cost and make a real difference in the lives of the mentally ill.
“The government is not just hurting the mentally ill and their families but itself as well. Mentally ill consumers cost the state more money without these programs than if they still existed. When it comes to mental health, South Carolina’s government is, as my grandmother would say, ‘penny wise and pound foolish.’
“I challenge all publicly elected officials who have a say in the matter of funding mental health programs to go sit for an hour in my shoes. Take an unannounced trip to your nearest county mental health center and spend some time in the waiting room. Just go and sit. See what life is like for those poor forgotten souls and do what you were elected to do: represent them and every taxpayer in South Carolina.”
Edward M. Gilbreth is a Charleston physician. Reach him at edwardgilbreth@
comcast.net.
