Sad state of affairs...

[Okla-homey]

last night, I watched with interest a "Frontline" documentary on OETA that exposed the abject failure that is the national policy of de-institutionalizing severely mentally disturbed persons.

See, in the rush to "mainstream" these folks into the community, which everyone thought was a really important and compassionate thing to do about 20 years ago now, we ended up releasing them into the community where, unsupervised and with no one to make sure they took their meds, they got into trouble. Repeatedly. Result? Jail.

So in reality, when we closed all the "State Hospitals," what we did was to ensure far too many of the patients therein would end up in the penitentiary.

And prisons are far more expensive to operate than the now banned "state hospitals." Not to mention the fact putting these people in cages is precisely the sort of thing that got the worst of the hospitals closed down in the first place.

I don't know what to do about it, but its a danged expensive and inhumane mess.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/released/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=bigimage&utm_source=bigimage

[Viking Kitten]

In Oklahoma, adults with developmental disabilities get a set amount of money every month (waivers) to provide them with support services, such as in-home health care. The most severely disabled get the highest level of assistance, usually round-the-clock care, and often two or more such disabled people will live in the same home.

What I would like to know is what longitudinal studies have been done that would evaluate the effectiveness of that current system as opposed to simply warehousing them. The sad fact is, many of these people will never be rehabilitated, but we should expect humane treatment, even though it costs more.

[Okla-homey]

In Oklahoma, adults with developmental disabilities get a set amount of money every month (waivers) to provide them with support services, such as in-home health care. The most severely disabled get the highest level of assistance, usually round-the-clock care, and often two or more such disabled people will live in the same home.

What I would like to know is what longitudinal studies have been done that would evaluate the effectiveness of that current system as opposed to simply warehousing them. The sad fact is, many of these people will never be rehabilitated, but we should expect humane treatment, even though it costs more.

Mind you, these aren't necessarily "disabled" folks. They are fine physically, and most are quite normal, even charming, when on their meds. The thing is VK, under law, you cannot force a person to take his or her meds. The folks profiled in the Frontline piece would take their meds in jail or in a group setting, start feeling better and as a result start feeling self-sufficient. Then, at the first opportunity; either on release from jail, or; in the group home setting when they felt like it -- they hit the bricks.

Shortly thereafter, they stopped taking the meds, either because they ran out, they were lost or stolen, or they just didn't bother. Predictably, these folks rapidly decompensate and the next thing you know, they're throwing rocks through windows, assaulting people or worse. Picked-up. Charged, Convicted. Incarcerated. Over and over.

As to your question about the cost-benefit analysis here in Oklahoma, sounds like a great idea for a story.;)

[Ike]

Thanks for posting this Homey.

I have to think that for the people you describe, the ones that are 'fine' when on their meds, that maybe at least some fraction of them could maintain some level of productivity with perhaps a good supportive system around them. I don't know that we'd get more out of them than what would be spent on the 'system', but perhaps just keeping them out of trouble with the law introduces enough savings to make a more humane, supportive system worthwhile.

As I would have to assume that many locales have approached the problem of the severely mentally ill in many different ways, I would be curious to see what some of the more successful communities have done (assuming that there must be some, somewhere)

[picasso]

Lots of 'em are homeless and self medicating.

Sad life.