As Texas cuts mental healthcare, jails fear influx
From the Houston Chronicle:
In a state that already ranks near the bottom in per capita spending for mental health care, House members have proposed a cut of 20 percent in services provided by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Targets of the cut are caseworkers, crisis hotlines, clinics and community health centers, where severely mentally ill adults and children receive medications and outpatient treatment. The community-based centers get funding from the federal government, private foundations and individuals, although most of it comes from the state.
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They are people like Tony Daugerty, 62, who was diagnosed 30 years ago with manic-depression and who has been in and out of jail at least 15 times in five years. For Daugerty and others, it’s easier to get arrested than it is to get treatment. Jail also is a more reliable provider of the treatment he needs.
…“We have not recuperated from those cuts from the 2003 legislative decisions that were made,” said Dr. Sylvia Muzquiz, medical director of MHMRA’s mental health division. “When the outpatient system was cut back, there was an increased influx of individuals showing up to emergency rooms and to the jails.”
Since 2003, the Harris County Jail has gone from fewer than three full-time psychiatrists dealing with the mentally ill to 11 on duty 24 hours a day.
“We function, basically, as an emergency room,” Muzquiz said. “We can’t turn people away here. The emergency rooms can close doors and say they’re at capacity. The jail can’t.”
In the midst of this insanity, in the second worst state in the US to receive mental health treatment, Texas’s biggest priority is whether or not Houston gets to display a space shuttle.