Blog note: this letter references several grand jury reports.
Sheriff Tom Allman’s latest tax increase request, Measure B, states in the Voter Information Pamphlet “Everyone agrees that people suffering from mental illness or drug addiction need treatment.” This may be true, but forcing individuals to enter treatment against their will and cooperation and confining these individuals in a locked facility is an entirely different matter. Given Mendocino County’s poor track record in delivering this specialized care and the County’s past failures in operating a Psychiatric Health Facility, sober consideration by the voting public is required.
The Sheriff has stated publicly many times that he sees individuals with mental illness as “the No. 1 one public safety concern in the County.” Following the devastating Redwood Complex Fire and the tragic loss of life from this historical event, reasonable people can disagree with this statement. The challenges of climate change and preparing and equipping our local first-responders to confront these ominous threats to our environment and personal safety, feels significantly more urgent.
The history of mental health services within the County, particularly the management of inpatient locked facilities, is a history of conflict, turf wars between agencies and the people who manage these individual departments. The lack of communication and coordination between these departments has also been a prevalent and disappointing reality. These observations have been well documented in numerous Grand Jury reports over the last 20 plus years. The last Psychiatric Health Facility ( the infamous PHF or “Puff Unit” ) closed in November of 2000, as a result of the County’s failure to provide the required medical staff for the unit. Lawsuits or the threat of them hastened the collapse. This failure of Mendocino County to attract and retain credentialed mental health professionals is an existing and on-going obstacle that has not been solved. The most current Grand Jury report confirms this ongoing crisis of qualified new-hires within the Health and Human Services Agency, which for the last several years, has resorted to requesting waivers from state-mandated staffing levels and credential requirements.
Building a new, tax-payer funded $30 million Psychiatric Health Facility will not change the reality of inadequate mental health professionals willing to work in Mendocino County. Buildings don’t heal people. Trained, qualified professional practitioners are what is needed. The County already spends tens of millions of dollars as part of the annual County Mental Health Budget on programs with titles such as Adult System Care, Medication Support Services, Wellness and Recovery Center, Assisted Outpatient Treatment, Mental Health Child and Family Services, Family Wraparound, New Beginnings Campus, Crisis Intervention, and on and on….
In December 2015, Dr. Marvin Trotter, one of the most respected physicians in Mendocino County, testified before the Board of Supervisors that the solution to mental health disorders is not more 5150 admissions, but professional outpatient therapy, medication, effective case management and housing. Locking people up who are experiencing acute psychiatric crisis is by definition, a failure of the system. Constructing a new building for the confinement of these individuals will be a monument to this failure.
What will produce real change is greater accountability and performance within the existing mental health programs. A Mental Health Czar needs to be appointed by the Board of Supervisors to mandate and enforce this change. Tax payers must demand this before another $38 million dollars in needless taxes are taken away from our local economy, giving the average hard working, productive citizen nothing in return. Vote NO on Measure B.
October 23, 2017
Ukiah Daily Journal
By David Roderick, Hopland
No comments:
Post a Comment