The intellectually disabled teen has spent most of his adolescence bouncing between juvenile jail and a mental health program that cannot help him get better.
“Welcome to NAMI en español,” says Pedro Arciniega, in Spanish, before an audience of more than 35 participants who were crammed into a room to attend a month meeting to hear about one young man’s journey who struggles with a severe mental illness.
California’s jails were built to hold inmates for relatively short sentences — usually just a few months. But now local law enforcement is grappling with how to hold offenders for long periods of time, which is having an impact on mentally ill inmates.
Just because a medical board takes action, it doesn’t mean that the action is adequate. Consider the case of Dr. Reinaldo de los Heros, a Maine psychiatrist who columnist William Heisel first wrote about back in 2010.
Jennifer’s experience in Florida’s Medicaid system isn't unique: She waited three months for her son’s appointment and drove 50 miles, only to have the doctor spend five minutes with him, ignore her concerns and tell her to go someplace else.
The effect of squalid housing on people’s health is difficult to determine in California's Sonoma County, since there is no study, stockpile of data or government agency that tracks illness in connection with living environments.
The roster of mental health workers in the rural areas is alarmingly small. And with too many people seeking help and few professionals to offer it, experts say the results are predictable: lengthy wait times, fragmented care and — in some cases — patients giving up hope of finding treatment.
Infants use about 240 diapers per month. A year’s supply of diapers costs $936. That means a single mother mother working full time at the minimum wage can expect to spend 6 percent of her annual pay on Pampers alone.
Mental health providers in Illinois acknowledge that the state is in a dire budget situation. They say they have become more resourceful, finding ways to continue serving their patients and hope that the Affordable Care Act will help their situation.
More than 41,000 adults get mental health services from San Diego County. Still, as many as 10,000 in need of help may be falling through the cracks.
