From the Senator's Desk . . .
September 18, 2008
Today in Texas, the mental health system is in crisis. Over the past weeks, we have demonstrated serious harm inflicted on agency after agency by the Grover Norquist approach to government: cut funding, cut training, cut resources—and then, of course, cut taxes for the wealthy. Who get's hurt are the young, the old, the vulnerable and you!
Written by Senator Eliot Shapleigh, www.shapleigh.org
"Texans in the Tub: Mental Health"
(Updated March 2009)
Today in Texas, the mental health system is in crisis.
Agency by agency, we have demonstrated serious harm inflicted by the Grover Norquist approach to government: cut funding, cut training, cut staff—and then, of course, cut taxes for the wealthy.
Norquist is best known for his infamous quote: "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years," he says, "to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Today, American soldiers are in Grover's tub.
Last year, Army Spc. Joseph Patrick Dwyer became its most well-known victim. Back in 2003, as President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were selling Americans on the Iraq war, Pfc. Dwyer was captured in a photo Americans will remember forever.
Pfc. Dwyer enlisted in the military two days after the 9/11 attacks. He was trained as a medic at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas and deployed with the 3rd Infantry's 7th Cavalry Regiment in March 2003.
Today, we all know Pfc. Dwyer from this famous photograph showing his daring rescue of a young Iraqi boy, Ali, wounded in battle near Al Faysaliyah, Iraq on March 25, 2003. What the photo did not show was what happened to Dwyer afterward. Since returning from Iraq in June 2003, Dwyer suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
When Dwyer returned to Fort Bliss after his three-month deployment, he exhibited ever worsening signs of PTSD. While living in El Paso, Dwyer veered off the road into a street sign because he thought he was avoiding a roadside bomb. A year later, El Paso police had a three-hour standoff with Pfc. Dwyer after he locked himself in his apartment because he thought he was under attack from Iraqi insurgents.
On June 28, 2008, after five years of suffering from paranoia, depression and substance abuse, Pfc. Dwyer died in North Carolina from an overdose of inhalants and pills. The officials treated his death as an accident, but others close to Dwyer treat it as a suicide.
His story—and those of hundreds of others—is the reality of what happens when lawmakers talk about compassion but never commit to care. In the end, Pfc. Dwyer returned to suffer PTSD without a helping hand—and he is not alone.
According to an in-depth study released by the RAND Corporation last April, because of extensive time in combat for today's soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan, almost one in five soldiers have symptoms of PTSD and/or major depression—nearly four times the rate for soldiers before deployment as well as the rate for the general population. Of great concern is that only half of these soldiers have sought treatment. Further, the costs of medical treatment and associated loss of productivity will be over $6 billion in just the two years following deployment.
In fact, lack of treatment is already a growing problem across Texas.
On issues related to mental health, Texas spends less than all but two states: New Mexico and Arkansas. Texas does not have enough mental health care professionals or a continuum of care to address the needs of our residents—another consequence of inadequate funding.
As a result, many will end up in jail or the emergency room, both of which are already close to capacity. Others will tragically end their lives like Pfc. Dwyer.
Last year, regional MHMR authorities across the state served almost 20 percent more individuals than they received funding for. Statewide, regional MHMR authorities are grappling with the same issues—given the lack of adequate funding, do we compromise on quality or quantity? How many get care—how many get none?
In many key programs, more Texans wait for services on interest lists than are actually being served. For example, in the HCS waiver program, which provides home and community-based services as an alternative to institutionalization for those who are mentally retarded, 33,436 get served while 39,455 wait for services. Without an infusion of additional monies, local taxpayers and a variety of other community entities—school districts to emergency room personnel to the police—will be forced to deal with mental health issues.
Unfortunately, the problems with the mental health care system are not unique.
This reality is repeated in state agency after agency—from TXDOT to CPS. In addition to the significant problems with the mental health system, other serious issues exist with services for the mentally retarded.
In fact, the U.S. Department of Justice recently expanded their investigation of abuse, neglect, and even lack of basic care to include every single state school for the mentally retarded. What started out as an investigation of one state school for abuses by direct care staff has broadened, first to another state school, then the entire system. In the Austin school alone, 70 percent of direct care staff quit in 2008 due to low pay or were fired. The average direct-care turnover rate for all 13 state schools was 50 percent. These systemic abuses stem primarily from inadequate funding and poor training of staff—which brings us back to Grover Norquist.
Norquist and his allies view a drowning government as a success. When Perry and Craddick cut budgets in Austin, we pay the price. Tax cuts in Austin mean tax hikes in El Paso. Even worse, our most vulnerable children get cut from vital programs—like basic mental health and/or mental retardation services.
From our soldiers to our children, we can no longer afford to put Texans in Grover's Tub.
We deserve a government that works
Eliot Shapleigh