WSJ Reporter Writes Murphy Is Backing Welner For Top Mental Health Post

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Congressman Tim Murphy and Dr. Michael Welner confer at hearing.

(4-19-17) This story in today’s Wall Street Journal by Michelle Hackman supports what I reported in a  blog last month about efforts by Republican Pennsylvania Representative Tim Murphy to get Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and the White House to appoint Dr. Michael Welner as the first Assistant Secretary for mental health. Whether this appointment will really happen, however, is still anyone’s guess given the oftentimes erratic temperament of the White House.

Trump’s Latest Pick for Mental-Health Post Has Helped Prosecutors Secure Convictions

Forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner has testified in high-profile cases; on television, he has called killers ‘alienated losers’

By Michelle Hackman  published in The Wall Street Journal. 

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is struggling to fill a top mental-health post, a job created last year to coordinate the efforts of far-flung federal agencies.

The assistant secretary position in the Department of Health and Human Services was first offered to a Florida judge, but the offer was withdrawn due to his lack of a medical background, according to people familiar with the matter. A second candidate had broad support but pulled out.

Now a leading contender is Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist who has testified for the prosecution in numerous high-profile criminal cases, according to a half-dozen people familiar with the process including Dr. Welner himself. He faces opposition for some controversial positions.
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Outrageous! Joan Bishop recounts the tragic death of her psychotic sister in powerful documentary, raising troubling questions about our system

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(4-17-17) A seriously mentally ill woman denies that she is sick and after a year of refusing treatment is released from a state hospital. She gives discharge officials a fake address, walks a few miles from the hospital and breaks into an unoccupied farm that is for sale. Afraid to venture out, she survives by eating crab apples from the backyard while writing her thoughts in a compelling diary, chronicling her own starvation up to the day that she becomes so weak she can no longer write. Her body and diary were found months later.

I first heard this incredibly sad story in 2009 from the woman’s sister, Joan Bishop, who was outraged because the hospital had discharged her sister, Linda, knowing she was seriously ill and had refused to notify anyone because of HIPAA.

Joan was determined to tell the world what happened to Linda. I wrote two blogs about it and two years later, Rachel Aviv, wrote a stunning account published by The New Yorker about Linda’s death under the title:  GOD KNOWS WHERE I AM.

Last year, documentary film makers Todd and Jedd Wider, and Brian Ariotti  turned Aviv’s account into a powerful film that will make its premiere on April 21st in New Hampshire where Linda died. The film will be shown at the Red River Theater in Concord, but wait, there’s more.

I was excited to learn that clips from the film are tentatively being scheduled for showing at the National Alliance on Mental Illness national convention in Washington D.C. this summer ( June 21st thru July 1st)  followed by a panel discussion.

I am so grateful that Joan (who appears in the documentary as herself) made certain that Linda’s life  and her death have been memorialized. The film raises serious questions, not only about our mental health system and HIPAA but also about the civil rights of individuals who are seriously ill. Visit the film’s website  to learn when it may be showing in your area.

Here is the story that Joan first told me eight years ago.

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Happy Easter From Me To You: Let’s Continue Working For A Better World

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(4-16-17) For Christians, Easter is a time of miraculous resurrection. For others, it is a time to celebrate the coming of spring, birth and renewal. For all of us, it should be a time for compassion and caring for persons less fortunate, especially those with mental disorders and co-occurring problems.

Write Hal Lindsey said it best:

“Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air…but only for one second without hope.”

Have hope, help others, change lives.

Happy Easter and thank you for reading my blog for the past eight years.

‘The Way Madness Lies’ – Most Honest Portrayal Of How Severe Mental Illness Ravages Families and Lives That I’ve Seen!

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(4-10-17) You are riding in a car on a major highway with a gentle rain splashing on the windshield while you speak into a car microphone to a case worker at Oregon State Hospital, where the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was filmed.

You say, “My brother is there and I am wanting to get in touch with his case worker.”

Your call is transferred and a case worker who doesn’t identify himself comes on the line.

You say, “My brother is in the hospital there and I was wondering if I can find out some information about him.”

He says, “Sorry, due to confidentiality laws I can’t tell you whether he is there or not.”

“I definitely know he is there because the police just told me that they took him to the hospital. I can at least provide information -“

The case worker cuts you off. “Yeah, I couldn’t do that without telling you whether he is here or not. But you could do that in a letter form. Of course, you can write a letter to anyone. You can write it to the doctor who is in charge of whoever the person is who might be here.”

Thus begins Sandra Luckow’s powerful documentary “That Way Madness Lies...”

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What’s The Biggest Threat To Mental Health Care? Ironically, It’s The Opioid Crisis.

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(4-3-17) The biggest danger to improving mental health care in America today is not:

*Efforts to repeal and reform the Affordable Care Act or reduce Medicaid.

*Too many persons with mental illnesses being inappropriately incarcerated in jails and prisons.

*A lack of affordable housing, jobs, transportation, or access to crisis care beds and medications.

*A lack of peer support, clubhouses, Crisis Intervention Team trained officers, mental health courts or re-entry programs.

The biggest danger facing mental health care today is the opioid crisis.

Here’s a shocking figure for you to consider:

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Virginia Hospital Says No Beds For Psych Patients But Wants 100 New Profit Earning Beds For High Priced Surgeries- Cha-Ching!

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(3-31-17) My good friend and long time mental health advocate, Betsy Greer, is outraged that an Arlington, Virginia hospital is reportedly turning away 57% of individuals who need psychiatric services but wants Arlington county officials to offer it land to expand so it can build 100 profit-generating surgical beds without improving psychiatric patients’ needs. While this story focuses on a wealthy Washington D.C. suburb, it is not unique as more and more hospitals strive to grow fat while bypassing mental health. Betsy tells me that on Monday, April 3, advocates will be pleading their case at a 7:30 p.m. meeting at the Health Systems Agency of Northern Virginia, 3040 Williams Drive, Room 200, Fairfax, Va.  

ARLINGTON VIRGINIA ADVOCATES FIGHT FOR LOCAL HOSPITAL MENTAL HEALTH SERVICE

By Betsy Greer

A newly created group is asking Arlington county officials to make the sale or swap of 5.5 acres of prime Arlington county property to the Virginia Hospital Center (VHC) conditional on that hospital improving its emergency room and psychiatric ward services for individuals with mental illnesses.

“Too many Arlington residents have been turned away from VHC due to a shortage of beds or because they don’t treat minors,” said Naomi Verdugo, one of the organizers of the Arlington Mental Health Alliance. “This requires them to travel all over the state for psychiatric hospitalization, far from their families who should be part of their treatment. Arlington residents deserve better from their community hospital.”

For the advocates, it is a fight between them and Goliath, an independent, not-for-profit hospital operated like a well-heeled corporation, which in 2014 had more than $600 million invested in securities, excess revenue of more than $60 million over expenses. It is coming at the time VHC is requesting state approval for licensure for 100 new medical and surgical beds, but NONE for patients with mental illness.

VHC’s own 2014 Community Health Needs Assessment, gained from a survey of community stakeholders, listed mental health conditions and depression as the two most important health concerns, ahead of adult obesity, diabetes and substance and alcohol use!  vhc_logo_color

‘There are a number of reasons why it is important for the Virginia Hospital Center to respond positively to the requests made by us and the Arlington Community Services Board (CSB), which provides mental health services in our county,” said Anne M. Hermann, chair of the Arlington CSB. “This is a community hospital and the beds they have are not nearly enough to cover the need. This shortage is demonstrated by the frequency with which Arlingtonians experiencing a mental health emergency are turned away from VHC and sent elsewhere in the Commonwealth, sometimes quite some distance.”

A primary CSB request is that VHC commit to a minimum of 15 additional single-occupancy adult psychiatric rooms and commit to opening additional psychiatric beds to meet demand when a compelling need is demonstrated. VHC uses only 35 of its currently 40 licensed behavioral health beds, 17 for substance abuse treatment. The remaining 18 beds reserved for those needing stabilization for a mental illness crisis are in double rooms which restricts use unless a new patient is of the same sex and deemed stable enough to share a space. (Ironically, VHC markets itself as the only area hospital offering private rooms.)

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