(Columbia) May 18, 2005 - When you drive by the old
state hospital and see the empty buildings, have you
ever wondered what happened to all the people who used
to receive treatment there?
Dave Almeida is with
the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, "Some went
home, some went to new homes. And unfortunately some
went absolutely nowhere and that is who we are the most
concerned with."
He says mental health patients
are warehoused in jails, living on the streets and stuck
in hospital emergency rooms because there is no where
else for them to go, "They're either homeless. They're
incarcerated or they are in hospital emergency rooms,
but what they are not getting is they are not getting
treatment. Why? Because the push to move people from
hospitals into the community failed."
Almeida is afraid the state is failing the mentally
ill again. The governor vetoed a proviso that earmarked
half the money from the sale of the prime property to
the Department of Mental Health.
WIS wanted to ask the governor why. His spokesman
said the governor was unavailable for comment on
Wednesday, but Will Folks gave us a statement, "Our
position on the money saved by selling surplus property
has always been that it belongs to the state, not to the
individual agency. We simply want to make sure that
whether it's education, health care or law enforcement,
we're not short-changing other critical needs that are
out there."
Almeida agrees with the governor, to a point, "What
he's saying is the dollars belong to the taxpayers and
we are not disputing that. What we are saying is a
promise was made and it was made to use those very
dollars to fund mental health services."
He says the promise was made by the state to the
mental health community years ago to take care of some
of its most vulnerable citizens, "If we permanently
close the state hospital without providing services,
we're condemning people to a life of homelessness, a
life of incarceration and a life of accessing medical
care in hospital emergency rooms."
The General Assembly can, of course, override the
governor's vetoes. WIS talked with Rep. Tracy Edge
(R-Dist. 104) who heads the committee that deals with
mental health issues. He says, "The veto is hard to
understand. If we override the veto, the Department of
Mental Health should get $14 million. If we don't, they
will get nothing."
By Kara
Gormley
Posted 7:15pm by BrettWitt
