Issue Position: Mental Health Care in Massachusetts

Issue Position

* How can the legislature best support adequate access to mental health care in Massachusetts?

When we deinstitutionalized mental health treatment, there was no adequate system put in its place. Now the criminal justice system is where people with serious mental illness end up. Our prisons and jails are filled with people with mental health issues; 30% of males and 70% of females in Massachusetts prisons have open mental health cases. Incarceration should not be our treatment plan. We must integrate care into our communities. https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/the-desperate-and-the-dead/series/police-confrontations/

I am very proud of the police departments In our district, where officers are learning to de-escalate situations and help people with mental illness or substance abuse find treatment, instead of arresting them. Reducing the harm of mental illness and connecting with treatment should be our goal.

We also need to ensure access to more intensive care. Every community should have a system of care. We have a dramatic shortage of inpatient acute care beds. Too often, people experiencing a serious episode of mental illness are brought into an emergency room for care, and even kept for days. They're released when the episode and the danger they pose to themselves or others has passed. They rarely leave with follow-up treatment, only to repeat the cycle in the future. We haven't created treatment pathways for people dealing with serious mental illness.

Source