Fund Mental Healthcare Like Cancer Treatment

The tragic Maine massacre reminds Americans of two poorly addressed issues in the United States: guns and mental health.

Guns

If the U.S. properly regulated guns, Robert Card could not have quickly shot so many people. Mass shootings occur because of firearms that release many bullets quickly. If guns like this were not easily available, we would not lose loved ones, friends, and neighbors so often.

Regulating guns is important. Many Americans needlessly die every year, children included, because of the availability of weapons that belong in the hands of the military or should be locked away. All weapons need proper background checks and storage so that additional accidents and intentional deaths do not occur.

News reports suggest that Robert Card had mental health issues. Note that many people who commit violent crimes do not have mental health issues.

Mental Healthcare

A good psychiatrist needs to get to know her patient and understand his family’s history, his current circumstances, and various stressors that might exacerbate his symptoms.

Some mental illnesses are genetic so if a person’s parents, siblings, and grandparents had an illness, that person may be more likely to suffer as well. The patient’s history as a child, teen, and young adult may reveal adverse experiences that could cause or worsen illness: poverty, trauma, violence, loss of loved ones, and a myriad of other factors.

Mental health is often undertreated. A person may have already sought help for depression, but a new doctor might recognize that the patient has a more complex diagnosis such as bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or schizophrenia.  In addition, a patient may do well for a while and then go through a darker period. Knowing how to adjust treatment for each patient requires regular meetings with the petient. Many patients are not a danger to themselves or others, but for those who might be, attempting to figure out who should commit themselves or be involuntarily committed to care is tricky.

With Robert Card, everyone has, as my dad would call, “twenty-twenty hindsight,” meaning that people have a clear idea of what should have happened before a tragic event, but only afterward. In Robert’s case, he was hospitalized; his family notified law enforcement of his state of mind; and so on. Does law enforcement even have enough staff to monitor potential killers?

In addition to medication, a person with a mental health condition may need other types of care: therapy, tests for ADHD or other conditions, evaluation of the person’s physical health, and so on.

Dealing with Causes or Effects

Cities can clear away homeless camps, families can suffer through addictions, persons in Uvalde, TX, and Lewiston, ME can bury loved ones, and people can mourn friends who have died from opiates. Until federal and state governments fully fund “physical” and mental health care, so many of the same problems that we wring our hands over will remain.

Some of the people who read this will cry “socialism!” This proposal is not socialism. Socialism occurs when the government takes over all the means of production: food, energy, clothing, and all the pharmaceutical companies. My proposal falls into the categories of public education, road maintenance, the judicial system, police and fire departments.

Adequate mental health care along with “physical” health care would allow the country to take a big step in the direction of righting wrongs and easing suffering.

Fund Mental Healthcare Like Cancer Treatment

When a person has cancer, she may not recognize the cause of her symptoms right away. Likewise, a person with a mental illness may think that his depression is a reaction to a job loss, or is seasonal affective disorder. When symptoms do not go away, the future cancer and mental health patient may consult a professional. The doctor will do various tests or scans to detect cancer. The doctor will ask the patient who is depressed (and possibly family members) questions about the patient. If the doctor is unsure, more tests or more questions may be necessary. The doctor begins a treatment for cancer or for bipolar depression, for example. Periodically the doctor assesses how the treatment is working and whether or not additional treatment would be helpful or necessary.  Re-assessment and adjustments occur throughout.

Mental illness is complex. One visit does not cure it. Mental healthcare like cancer treatment is expensive. The US must fund all health care adequately.