OUR mental-health system has gaping

OUR mental-health system has gaping holes and we cannot continue to ignore them. In our work at Downtown Emergency Service Center we see these holes reflected every day in the people who fall through them. Our mission is to provide the kind of care that helps people get back on their feet and find stability. Expanding Medicaid access to 250,000 people in our state under the Affordable Care Act will help us fill those holes and make that care possible.

Recent and past cuts to mental-health programs have left us scrambling to provide care, causing our neighbors with mental illnesses to end up in emergency rooms and jails for costlier treatment while politicians in Olympia debate how to care for many of the people we see.

We recently met a woman living with severe mental illness. About once a week she would call 911 for transportation to the emergency room, where doctors and nurses would treat her most urgent need, whether it was a stomachache or withdrawal symptoms from her addiction. The ER then released her back to the street.

Those weekly ambulance rides cost taxpayers around $1,500, not including the emergency-room bills, when what she needed was long-term, comprehensive treatment for mental illness and addiction. She cycled in an out of short-term care, and her addiction worsened as she tried to self-medicate to alleviate the symptoms of her mental illness. Our mental-health system let her down, and across the board, we weren’t able to provide the care she needed.