{"id":915,"date":"2023-03-22T09:02:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T09:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=915"},"modified":"2023-03-22T09:02:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T09:02:22","slug":"a-lot-of-thought-little-action-proposals-about-mental-health-go-unheeded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=915","title":{"rendered":"A Lot of Thought, Little Action: Proposals About Mental Health Go Unheeded"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Thousands of people struggle to access mental health services in Florida. The treatment system is disjointed and complex. Some residents bounce between providers and are prescribed different medications with clinicians unaware of what happened. Jails and prisons have become de facto homes for many who need care.<\/p>\n

These problems and more were identified in a scathing report released earlier this year by the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, a 19-person panel<\/a> that Florida lawmakers created in 2021 to push for reforms of the state\u2019s patchwork of behavioral health services for uninsured people and low-income families.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most troubling about the group\u2019s findings? They aren\u2019t new.<\/p>\n

More than 20 years ago, the Florida Legislature set up a commission with the same name<\/a> to examine the same issues and publish recommendations on how to improve mental health care in the publicly funded system.<\/p>\n

The echoes between the two groups \u2014 over two decades apart \u2014 are unmistakable. And Florida isn\u2019t the only state struggling with the criminalization of mental illness<\/a>, a lack of coordination<\/a> between providers, and insufficient access to treatment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year, the national advocacy group Mental Health America said Florida ranked 46th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for access to such care. Arizona, Kansas, Georgia, Alabama, and Texas were worse off, according to the nonprofit, which based its rankings on access to insurance, treatment, and special education, along with the cost and quality of insurance and the number of mental health providers.<\/p>\n

Conversations about mental health are at the forefront nationwide amid the proliferation of mass shootings<\/a>, pandemic-related stress,<\/a> rising suicide rates<\/a>, and shifting viewpoints on the role of police<\/a> in handling 911 calls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes down to how much investment, financially, legislators are willing to put into building a system that works,\u201d said Caren Howard, director of policy and advocacy at Mental Health America<\/a>, a nonprofit just outside Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

In Florida, the 1999 Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse was launched when Jeb Bush was governor. In a 74-page report released in 2001<\/a>, the group called the state\u2019s treatment system \u201ccomplex, fragmented, uncoordinated and often ineffective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\n