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EDITORIALS
From bad to worse
SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
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It's never a good time to learn that programs to help people with mental illness are strapped and
stretched to the breaking point -- and are having to turn people way from getting the help they
need. But it's especially ironic that this news hits during Kentucky's Suicide Prevention Week.
Annews story in Monday's Courier-Journal reported that Bridgehaven, the nonprofit
‘community mental health center, cannot provide free care to new, indigent clients.
‘The reason: state funding cuts.
The story also said increasing numbers of people who need help and a lack of money to treat them
are behind the growing wait for treatment and overflow of clients in other treatment centers and
agencies.
The lack of care not only adds to individual misery, it adds to community afflictions such as suicide,
homelessness and mentally ill people in jails and prisons.
“There seems to be no political will in the state at this moment to address the psychiatric problem.
It wor't change until it gets so bad the politicians can't avoid doing anything about it," said Dr. Allan
‘Tasman, chairman of psychiatry at the University of Louisville.
‘Things are bad already: Kentucky has the 18th highest suicide rate in the country. Clients who can
get in to see therapists or clinic staff members have had that time cut by as much as 40 percent in
the past six years. Prison populations are blowing budgets and bottom lines.
Kentuckians must stand up for those in need, and press our political leaders to fund these
desperately needed services.
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Stevenl 1955 wrote:
a Hmm. Maybe they should do what we all are having to do, like charge less? Make
adjustments in their budgets, cut things that aren't really needed, stop wasting
money and maybe, just maybe they would not have to turn anyone away.
9/10/2008 6:11:50 AM
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