Member-only story
Mental Health
Society in general tends to be reactive, not proactive in most things. Reactive is the least effective modality for approaching community mental health care. It puts a burden on law enforcement, for one. The burden on society is more than medical expenses and jail expenses, but can result in the loss of life, whether that is street violence, school violence, or the accidental death of bystanders, such as what happened when a person attempted suicide off a bridge, went through a windshield and killed the truck driver. Community mental health is not prepare for what is likely coming your way.
Community mental health was not designed to be a fix all, nor is it the standard. There is no national standard for mental health care, which is why you have rankings of states, as seen above. It was supposed to be the stop gap, to catch those that fell through all the other nets. In a world where most people can’t afford health care or insurance, the demand for community health has grown.
In a world where there is an active pandemic, medical staff at all levels are overwhelmed, economy is down, and we’re likely to see the largest population of homeless since the great depression when evictions start kicking in. It’s very likely community health organizations are not prepared for what’s coming. There are talking points from government officials in the media, but little action. They know it’s coming. We in the mental health no it’s already here.
Too little, too late
And we’ve known this for a while. It’s difficult to keep psychiatrist in community mental health. Why would a doctor want to work in community for less pay, where they are more likely to encounter the most adversarial, aggressive, non-compliant population of patients when they can go into private pay, make more money, make their own hours, and pick and chose the clients they want to keep?
Nurse practitioners substitute the lack of doctors. There is a high turnover rate for them, too. They usually come in to get hours and then move on to either their own private practice, or a medical entity that pays them more and works them less. There is a high turnover rate for MAs. Community mental health over works them, under pays them, and there is little room…
