If someone told you they had access to specialty cardiology treatment but not to primary care, you may find it ironic. If someone told you they are being treated for their cancer but not for their co-occurring diabetes, it would seem ridiculous. Yet this kind of health care is typical to that given to individuals suffering from serious mental illness.
The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors 2007 study on morbidity and mortality in people with serious mental illness revealed that, on average, people with severe mental illness die 25 years earlier than the general population. This was a bombshell. But the tragic report findings corroborated what those in the trenches — community mental and behavioral healthcare providers — suspected; community mental health organizations are helping people recover from mental illness when their lives are endangered due to neglect of other serious health issues.
The barriers to complete care seem daunting. A recent survey of community behavioral organizations revealed that although over 90% consider general healthcare for consumers a priority, only one in two organizations has any general healthcare capacity, and less than one in three has the capacity to provide the services onsite. The most common barriers to obtaining general medical services are problems in reimbursement, workforce limitations, physical plant constraints, and lack of community referral options.
The large unmet need for mental health and substance abuse specialty services within general healthcare also cannot be ignored. A 2007 Health Affairs article notes that community health centers reported that over 40% of uninsured patients and 20% of Medicaid patients had difficulty accessing mental health services; and over 50% of uninsured patients and 30% of Medicaid patients were challenged in accessing substance abuse treatment. Primary care needs the staff and skills to assess behavioral health conditions; and behavioral health care providers need the capacity to accept and treat the complex cases referred to them from primary care.
There are community behavioral health organizations that have implemented innovative clinical and financing models that make possible the provision of comprehensive care in collaboration with primary care centers. Collaboration is evident in co-located mental health and primary care services, enhanced referral processes between mental health and primary care, sharing of patient information, and cross-training of staff.
Community mental health organizations’ job is saving and improving lives. In addition to legislative activity, many mental health organizations have been active on the practice improvement front. Using web-based technologies have formed virtual learning communities where behavioral health and primary care professionals share information and offer feedback and advice.
Community mental health organizations around the U.S. will continue to advocate for increased attention and resources for the whole health of our communities — but to be effective they need your help. Here are four things that every person can do to help:
1.) Make your voice heard –
Advocate within your community and your state for resources to ensure that people with serious mental illnesses and addictions have access to primary care.
2.) Be creative –
Work with existing funding mechanisms to begin to address the whole health of people with serious mental illnesses and addictions; explore all the options.
3.) Foster collaboration –
Look for ways to begin to work with your local community health center or primary care practices. What might start with sending your staff to a primary care center can evolve into a robust partnership with primary care services being delivered within your organization.
4.) Focus on health -
Consider offering Mental Health First Aid certification programs in your community, helping people identify mental illnesses and respond to mental health crises. And as the most important healthcare providers in the lives of people with serious mental illnesses and addictions, promote healthy lifestyles and effective management of chronic conditions
Let us imagine the future — a future where we prevent illness whenever possible and when we can’t prevent, we educate, we intervene early, and we deliver the best possible care to every person, every place, every time. And if we imagine it — together we will make it happen.
Mental health care system under stress in Arizona
By Lynanne Gelinas Special to the Herald/Review SIERRA VISTA — A local mental health nonprofit is rallying to raise money to offset a more than 50 percent cut to its budget, while supporting an increased number of people seeking services after being cut from state programs. The Southeastern Arizona chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness has been hit hard by budget cuts made by the …
Copied from SQLJ » Mental Health Articles
A study in England of thousands of women and men found that people who went through the good and bad times with the original mate and stayed together were much happier mentally.
It was also found that men who played the field got over the relationships when they ended much quicker then women did.
Women who stay single who once had a great love that did not work out tended to be mentally stable.
The fact that women who live with a man without benefit of marriage are not as happy as the men is because there is no financial protection for them when the relationship ends. Security is everything to women and marriage represents stability and although the relationship can end they will have some rights. This explains why women who are married are more mentally stable then if they simply lived together.
Women have children and need a stable lifestyle and a strong desire to protect themselves and their kids. So marriage is very important financially and also there is the question of respect that everyone needs. If a women has her own career and here own money these thing may be less important.
From a man’s point of view and if he’s over 25 security is not very important. But most men don’t want to be squeezed into a relationship by the women he loves. He want’s it to be his idea. The trick for a woman is to make him believe it is His Idea.
Being married has always been associated with greater mental and physical health. Bachelors don’t live, as long, at least that’s what the myth indicates. In the past studies have shown married men live a longer life with greater psychological happiness.
There was an English study for 10 years ending in the millennium of 10,000 adults. Both men and women were interviewed and asked a series of questions about being depressed or anxious.
Long-lasting relationships that have weathered the storm provided excellent mental health.
People that had failed relationships and were now alone had combinations of grief and anger and were often depressed. Both men and women had poor mental health after this experience. But for those who could move on to new relationships, much of the damage was somewhat reversed. Although women seemed to have a harder time of letting go than men did.
Women’s mental health progressively deteriorated with the more break-ups they experienced.
For men that had several different experiences it seemed the opposite was true. Men who had more then one relationship and moved on seemed to be in excellent mental health. Those men that had only one relationship and not moved on were not as mentally stable.
Women who never married but lived with their mate were in great mental health unlike men in the same situation