From: "Mike Mulligan" http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rootcauseconferance Date: Sat May 29, 2004 2:15 pm Subject: Re: American Gulag -last one on this subject
Message 7988 of 8998
This will be the last message for a while on this subject.
I worked for a year as an unskilled counselor at a severely impaired children's mental institution. It's a long story, but I was asked to go there to work (anonymously) by a set of mothers who had grave concerns for their children who were housed there. My wife had worked there as a special ed teacher. She only lasted 9 mouths. They though I could change it.
These were the kids that were separated from their parents. In the end, we got some management change, but it took a child's death in order to do it. They had a host of medical errors that lead up to this with a bunch of children. I got fired from this job also. I was in meetings with upper management with concerns of mine prior to David's death.
I had taken care of this 14 year old boy with Downs Syndrome many times -he was living in the "house" (about ten houses at this facility) that I was working at the facility. This boy had a huge tong and mucus was constantly leaking out of his nose and mouth. I had grown to love this boy in the year and he was the one who died with a preventable death. I had known his mother well.
One bright blue sky Saturday morning , what do father's do with their boys on Saturday mornings, I woke David up. He got out of the bed and sat on the floor. He got very quite. It was not like him. Tears were coming out of his eyes. He didn't have the ability to communicate. He began quietly crying. I never knew why he was crying. I never could figure it out why he was crying. He was dead in two weeks.
I worked and played with David in the last afternoon. He had died during the following night with a blood clot from his artificial heart valves.
We had about six other children, most with severe autism. None of them could verbally communicate. The majority of the employees were uneducated hamburger flippers. Management stayed far away from us. It was a horror beyond imagination. Just think about that academic study about playing prisoner and guards. It wasn't really about physical abuse, but it happened. It was more about an uneducated behavior modification program with the kids and a shortage of educated case workers. The pay was terrible for everyone except the top executives. Oh yes, most definitely, it was about the severe shortage of nurses and doctors. We had a tremendous concentration of medically fragile children beyond the mentally disabled.
It should be noted that the last few children who got into our house came from extraordinarily connected and wealthy families. There was an extreme-extreme shortage of facilities as this. Even the educated elite who lived in castles on a mountain where so disparate, that they would do anything for their children. That is what these parents had in common –the desperation.
We though the wealthy families were getting a special privilege.
I will never forget the grey and bleak physical aesthetics of the rooms, houses and buildings –either in the institution or with adults out in the community. They never had enough money for painting the rooms, carpeting or brightly colored pictures on the children’s walls -neither for the skilled professionals, such as the disability specialist, social workers and nurses. Let me tell you something friends, it was such a façade you are seeing. You could detect which parents never visited their children –they had the bleakest rooms. The game for NH was to put the disabled in their own apartments and houses -but not to fund for the adiquate upkeep and maintenance of the home. There is a huge scandal yet to be seen -it is pictures and vedios from many of these disgraceful homes for which the fedural and state goverments are responcible for.
What the public needs –is a mostly accurate computer model of the bureaucracies – the politics, the financials, the interplay of the state agencies and the contracting services, the non profits, the function of our jails –and all the rest. We should have a computer program that accurately models the dysfunction of the system for the disabled –and the official’s and public should be allowed to play with all of the variables of the system in a computer game. It could be like the Tamagochi style educational game - http://www.mimitchi.com/html/q1.htm . How about a department of defense war game type simulation
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-sims.htm on the political battlefield of the disabled. You could get all the politicians to publicly play these War games once a year.
I remember talking to this old timer employee named Marie -she was working in an office. She had been a house counselor for forever. She was in charge of us I believe. She always wore a long sleeve blouse. It was a very hot day. She had her sleeves rolled up as I came for a visit in her office. Both her forearms were disfigured with many scars. I asked her what happened to your arms. She said it was an accumulation of children's mouth bites through the years. We had to physically restrain children often (when the meds didn't work)?
I later worked in a community setting for two years for the care of the mentally disabled. It's not any better there. I asked the managers and employees, what do you think about the care of your charges. The rationale almost word for word that came back, was well it much better than Laconia.
Laconia was the infamous New Hampshire state mental institution noted for its extreme human rights abuse prior to the 1980's. I wonder if you asked the employees of Laconia back in the bad old days, what do you think of the institutional care. They would came back that it is better for them than in being out in the community and living in the streets and jails.
I think we need both the institutional and community setting for the mentally disabled. The community setting people play off their problems with it's better than being in an institution. With the institutional model, it's nothing but a failure of leadership and accountability with the agencies, business executives and politicians. Folks, we are just in a crazy circle of disconnected philosophies and rationales on the favored approach of taking care of the disabled. We just don't want to fund the appropriate level of resources on any of them and make our goverment accountably. All manners of care are bound to fail with this attitude.
I believe the care of the disabled should be undertaken with state and fedural employees. The training and skills of the employees should be set by the goverment -and the politicians should be held accoutible for this. The current system is designed by the politicians -the bureaucracies, agencies, contractors and the non profits is designed, such the politicians are not held accountible for the conditions of the system. You can't wonder if campainge contributions to the politicians, fractured accountibly and non transparency is the rationale and primary driver of the current system. It is not in the interest of the disabled.
Let me tell you another little secrete here now. If you are a disabled child with parents who aren't totally active and engaged with the care of your child -you are totally screwed for a lifetime.
A surprising amount of parents and especially mothers, for self survival reasons, have to back off with taking care of their disabled children. The burdens of these families are extraordinary. We have such poor facilities and bureaucracies. These mothers drive themselves into a mental breakdown.
And then what is there.
Pope Worries About 'Soulless' U.S.
I hope you understand what I am driving to. I have seen very similar methods of business and governmental failures and unresponsiveness across broad spectrums of our society. They are all carbon copies of each other.
Thanks,
mike mulligan
Hinsdale,
NHwashingtonpost.com Mental Health System Needs a Lifeline By Thomas H. Bornemann Saturday, May 29, 2004; Page A27
At a time when the United States leads the world in almost every measurable category, and when its defense budget is greater by far than that of any other nation, it's sad to note that there is one major area in which we continue to lag behind other industrialized nations: the provision of health care to our people -- especially care for people with mental illnesses.
Last summer a presidential commission on the subject declared in its final report that the American mental health system is "fragmented and in disarray . . . leading to a host of problems including disability, homelessness, school failure and incarceration." Nearly a year later, as Mental Health Month draws to a close, little has changed. Many people with mental illnesses lack access to affordable, adequate services or avoid treatment because of the stigma associated with their illness.
From the work of the commission -- as well as from the 1999 surgeon general's report on mental health and a 2001 World Health Organization report -- we know a great deal about the magnitude and burden of mental illness. We know that when suicide is included, mental illness accounts for more than 15 percent of the burden of disease in industrialized countries -- more than the burden inflicted by all cancers. We know that almost 34 million Americans --21 percent of people between the ages 18 and 64 -- will have a mental illness over the course of a given year. We know that nearly70 percent of people suffering from mental illness are not getting the help they should, and that 79 percent of U.S. children with mental health problems severe enough to indicate a clinical need for evaluation do not receive either evaluation or treatment.
Too often, when symptoms reach the point of crisis, which many will, the most expensive services are required through emergency rooms and inpatient treatment. In many cases, jails and detention centers have become the front-line providers of mental health services, causing amuch greater financial burden than if prevention and community-based resources were readily available and affordable to everyone.The burden of mental illness goes beyond the fragmented service system and into the business sector. It is in the interest of corporations to provide adequate mental health coverage as part of their employee benefits. Research shows that untreated depression costs firms $31 billion a year in lost productivity.
Today more is known about the causes of mental illness than ever before, and through groundbreaking research we finally can providetreatments that work. About 80 percent of patients with depressioncan recover now, and 74 percent of patients with schizophrenia can live without relapses if early intervention is made. Recovery is possible.
A presidential commission on mental health during the Carter administration focused on developing a network of community-based services and supports. In many ways, the challenges that were present 25 years ago remain, despite remarkable scientific advances since then. And be assured, the advances are real. When I was trained in the early 1970s, we never envisioned that recovery was possible. Now it is often expected.
One would think this progress would bring about a drastic change for the better in the provision of mental health services. But since the latest commission reported last summer, mental health services have been cut in almost every state, and the prospect of more restrictions looms. The reductions have been so massive that in some cases people with serious mental illnesses have gone without even the most basic services.
In addition, a bill to require full mental health parity for insurance has failed to move in Congress in the two years since President Bush expressed his support for the legislation. Parity would not only make mental health services affordable for the great majority of Americans, it would recognize that mental illnesses are treatable and as common as other medical conditions.
Until legislation acknowledges and legitimizes mental health parity, and policymakers provide adequate resources for treatment and support services, mental illnesses will remain stigmatized, and people will be reluctant to seek treatment. Suicides will continue to be the greatest cause of violent deaths -- more than homicide or war-related deaths -- and expensive emergency services will be the primary source of treatment for many.
Mental illness affects everyone, be it through a family member, friend or personal experience. We all need a transformed mental health system that envisions recovery for everyone suffering from mental illness.
The writer is director of the Mental Health Program at the CarterCenter in Atlanta.© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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