"If the nation wanted a good answer to Sandy Hook and Aurora" it would make a commitment to providing mental health care to any American who "suffers a psychotic break," he said. We are not doing "what we know works."
There is overwhelming evidence that mental health affects overall health, says Rep. Kennedy and U.S. medicine needs to start doing a "check up from the neck up." Currently, we have "a two-tier system"--one for health care and one for mental health care, he said, and the latter is "poorly reimbursed and poorly respected within the medical community."
Others at the conference agreed. We have "under funded and eliminated" community mental health services and people with mental illness are, not surprisingly, ending up in jail and prison said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart who participated on a panel called Models for Change: Addressing Mental Illness and Addiction in the Justice System.
The number of women with mental health issues is "exploding" in the judicial system said Sheriff Dart with as many as "18 out of 20 women [who are arrested] acutely psychotic." No one is sure why. Mentally ill people, like the growing wave of disturbed women, have usually been arrested for "misdemeanor 4s" said Dart which means they are not dangerous criminals and probably require mental health services which are currently absent.
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