Search Results for: violence

The stabbing of Virginia state senator Creigh Deeds by his son, Austin, who later killed himself, ignited national headlines this week.  Early reports said “Gus” Deeds was released from a mental health center untreated because there were no crisis care beds available. Officials later blamed a Virginia rule that says the state must either hospitalize or discharge individuals within six hours after picking them up for observation. After he was freed, Gus attacked his father and then  turned a rifle on himself.

I was overwhelmed with calls from reporters because I had written an editorial in 2010 for The Washington Post about how Virginia was backsliding on its promises to improve mental health services after the Virginia Tech massacre. The Post tweeted links to it shortly after the Deeds’ tragedy. It also reminded readers about another Op Ed that I’d penned that described how Virginia hospitals were “streeting” patients — turning them away from emergency rooms — because there were no beds available. That revelation had come from a damning report by VA Inspector General G. Douglas Bevelacqua who has been a lone and relentless voice in Virginia when it comes to spotlighting holes in our state’s system.

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 I turned sixty-two last Thursday and my wife, Patti, hosted a family party on Sunday.  When you have a blended family of seven, there’s always someone having a birthday but this one was different for me. I can’t say that I am going through a mid-life crisis because I already have done that, several times.  I am now old enough to collect Social Security so I have to acknowledge that I have walked over the  middle age line .

The first week of September is always a time of taking stock for me. Patti’s first husband, Steve, died on September 2^nd  when he and Patti were in their thirties. Her sister, Joanne, died recently from cancer and would have celebrated her 50^th birthday on Sept. 4^th. Whenever I complain about getting older, Patti reminds me that Steve and Joanne didn’t celebrate as many birthdays as I have.  Patti has no patience for self-pity.

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FROM MY FILES FRIDAY:  I first published this blog in December 2010, yet the question that it poses  is just as haunting today.

WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS DEATH? 

The residents of Morrisville, Pa., got an intimate look this holiday season at our troubled mental health care system. Paulette Wilkie, a homeless woman with a long history of schizophrenia, was found dead from exposure. The 56 year-old woman’s   body was discovered last week behind Ben’s Deli, a sandwich shop that she frequented.

Temperatures the night before had dropped into the mid 20s. But that was not cold enough to trigger the county’s emergency homeless plan. Temperatures must sink to 20 degrees or below for two consecutive days before teams can be dispatched to try to  persuade homeless persons to come indoors.

Reporter Ben Finley, writing in the Bucks County Courier Times, noted that people who knew Wilkie said she likely would not have gone into a shelter anyway. The owner of Ben’s Deli said Wilkie refused help from people concerned about her safety and health.Click to continue…

Love him or hate him, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey continues to be a prolific and powerful voice in mental health.  In an article published yesterday in The National Review, the soon to be seventy-six year old psychiatrist joined with his protege, D. J. Jaffe, in attacking SAMHSA and in questioning the White House’s current campaign to reform our mental health system. 

Even though Torrey has contracted Parkinson disease, he has authored yet another book.  AMERICAN PSYCHOSIS: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System will be published in October, which is not only mental health awareness month, but also marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the federal Community Mental Health Act.

Torrey begins his book by explaining why President John F. Kennedy made mental health a priority.  According to advance publicity for Torrey’s book, the impetus came from within his own family.

 Though he never publicly acknowledged it, the program was a tribute to Kennedy’s sister Rosemary, who was born mildly retarded and developed a schizophrenia-like illness. Terrified she’d become pregnant, Joseph Kennedy arranged for his daughter to receive a lobotomy, which was a disaster and left her severely retarded.

In a blurb for the book,  Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, President Elect, American Psychiatric Association and a controversial figure in his own right, writes: “Torrey is the Dorthea Dix of our time.”
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