Who’s To Blame in Virginia For The Deeds Tragedy? Apparently No One!

no-excuses

Accountability matters.

A jet crashes. People die. A whistleblower reveals that airline officials were warned two years earlier about a fatal flaw in the engine that caused the crash but executives ignored those warnings.

How would the public react?

The Virginia Office of Inspector General issued a damning report in 2012 about “streeting” — emergency rooms turning away patients because there were no psychiatric beds available even though the patients were in the midst of a mental crisis.  The author of that report, G. Douglas Bevelacqua, warned the state’s Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services that Virginia had a bed shortage problem that needed to be fixed.

No one listened.

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Virginia IG Report About Deeds Tragedy: Breaking News

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I’ve just obtained a copy of the Virginia Inspector General Report investigating the Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds’ tragedy. You might recall that Inspector General Douglas Bevelacqua resigned after claiming that this investigative report was being watered down by his bosses. You can read the report by clicking here.

 

 

Rep. Murphy Investigates Psychiatric Bed Shortage

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Representative Tim Murphy, the only psychologist in the U.S. Congress, is continuing to keep pressure on the federal government to improve our mental health care system. This Wednesday, March 26th, the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the House Energy and Commerce committee, that Rep. Murphy co-chairs will hold an investigative hearing about the nation’s lack of psychiatric hospital beds.

Beginning at 10 a.m. in Room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, the hearing is entitled: “Where have all the patients gone? Examining the Psychiatric Bed Shortage.”

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In Your Worst Moments, Cling To The Best Times

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These past few months have been difficult.

I lost my mother in December to a fast acting cancer. She was 94 and died at home. I could not save her.

Her death caused my father’s dementia to become much, much worse. He is 93. It is heartbreaking watching him become more and more confused each day. I cannot save him.

Because of my mother’s age, people told me that she had lived a full life. They were trying to comfort me. Could you also argue that the longer you have someone, the tougher it is to let go?

These incidents have reminded me of my son’s first hospitalization. It happened on my birthday. Because he was ill, I was surprised when he handed me a home-made birthday card when I visited him at the hospital.  I described what happened next in my book,  CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness.

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Arrested For Trespassing: Dies In Hot Cell, Another Senseless Jail Death

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A major focus of my work has been calling attention to individuals with mental illnesses who are locked in our jails and prisons. Jails should not be our new mental asylums and I am outraged that more than two million persons with mental health problems are booked into U.S jails each year. I also find it frustrating that many mental health advocates marginalize this problem. I have been told by advocates that persons with mental illnesses who get arrested deserve it. Yet, as I documented in my book and as this story from the Associated Press clearly shows, many inmates with mental illnesses are NOT criminals. They are persons whose major crime is that they got sick. It was their illness that led to them violating the law, not criminal intent.

 
Since I published my book, there has NOT been a decline in incarceration rates for persons with mental illnesses. That is why we must continue calling for an end to the jailing of people who need treatment and services such as housing, not incarceration and punishment. Otherwise, we will continue to see more stories like this one.
 

NEW YORK (AP) — Jerome Murdough was just looking for a warm place to sleep on a chilly night last month when he curled up in an enclosed stairwell on the roof of a Harlem public housing project where he was arrested for trespassing.

A week later, the mentally ill homeless man was found dead in a Rikers Island jail cell that four city officials say had overheated to at least 100 degrees, apparently because of malfunctioning equipment.

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Forced Commitment: Speak Your Mind

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Few issues in mental health are as controversial as involuntary commitment. Everyone has a strong opinion, especially individuals who have been forced into treatment and their families.

My good friend, Baltimore psychiatrist Dr. Dinah Miller, and her colleague, Dr. Anne Hanson, are doing research for a book they plan to publish called: “Committed: The Battle Over Forced Psychiatric Care.” 

Dr. Miller asked me yesterday if I would help her meet individuals who have stories — good or bad– to tell about their experiences with involuntary treatment.

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