The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Mental health system is broken

Many thanks to The Gazette for taking on the subject of mental health in Colorado with their informative articles these last few months, and a special thanks to Vince Bzdek for your article, “A dramatic new idea to help the homeless”, in Sunday’s paper. Finally, a plan (Care Court) to compel the mentally ill homeless people in our society to get help or face forced commitment to a mental health facility. Clearly, deinstitutionalizing a vulnerable populous hasn’t worked and yet everyone avoids the “I” word (institutionalize) afraid to be thought of as “unenlightened.” Through our need to provide civil rights and “impractical compassion” to everyone, we opened the doors of the mental hospitals allowing patients a freedom that they were unable to handle effectively. Not everyone who has a mental illness belongs in an institutionalized setting, and no one wants a return of the days of men in white coats rounding up mentally ill people. But our current mental health system is severely broken and it has taken a huge toll on patients, families and communities alike. The extreme-mentally ill deserve better treatment than we have given them by turning them out into a world they cannot navigate under the guise of “freedom” and “rights.” They need to be taken care of and kept safe because they are currently unable to do it for themselves. If the only way we can accomplish that is through institutionalization, then so be it.

Hopefully we have learned enough from our mistakes in the 1940-50-60s to prevent the dismal treatments and atmosphere of past institutions. Surely we have learned enough about mental illness to help people in an inhouse setting while still offering them the dignity, cleanliness, nutrition and therapy that they need. Some patients say, “psycho-tropic medications cause undesirable side effects so I don’t want to take them.” Do we just give up on them, and let them live on the streets and under the bridges causing ruination to themselves and to our society — in the name of “freedom, rights and impractical compassion?” As Bzdek says, this is negligence, but that is exactly what we have done since the 1970’s and now our society faces a huge uphill battle to remedy this situation. I am not a fan of government programs, and the government system we’ve relied on for so many years has failed our mentally ill populous miserably, but Care Court sounds like it just might be the adult in the room — providing a hand-up instead of a hand-out. I hope it works. We have to start somewhere.

Freedom, civil rights, and compassion are important in our country, but we must be responsible with all three. Our mental health system is broken and there is currently no accountability. Again, thanks to The Gazette for informing us of this tragedy.

Kristine Crawford

Colorado Springs

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2022-05-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/281947431455739

The Gazette, Colorado Springs