SHOOTING: Here's root of the problem
When an incident such as the one that happened on Saturday in Tucson occurs, people want to blame someone or something obvious. Easy access to guns? Political anxieties? But what about the real issue behind so many of these incidents, a not-so tangible problem with a not-so-tangible solution: mental health issues.
Do we just add Jared Loughner to the long list of individuals who have committed violent acts: Timothy McVeigh, Scott Roeder, Nidal Malik Hasan, Seung-Hui Cho, shrug our shoulders and hope we’re not around when the next attack occurs, or do we take a look at our health system and see the lack of mental health support available to the public?
Mental health programs are usually the first programs to be cut in a state budget when money runs short. There is always money found for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and other illnesses but funding for mental health programs seems to fall to the cutting room floor year after year.
According to SAMHSA, nearly 5 percent of the US population suffers from a mental illness resulting in serious functional impairment, which substantially interferes with or limits one or more major life activities
People CAN recover from even the most serious and persistent mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder, but they can’t do it alone. Studies show that individuals recover or significantly improve when provided the appropriate treatments and support systems. Individuals recovering from mental illnesses are able to successfully live and work in the community, enjoy active social lives, attend school, practice their faith, maintain a healthy lifestyle—all while managing their own illness with the supports they may need.
But somewhere along the line, these people have to have access to treatment and support programs to re-establish themselves in the community. Yet year after year, funding for these programs is denied. Twice the Mental Health on Campus Improvement Act was dropped. This Act would have increased access to a range of mental and behavioral health services for students, including a focus on prevention, identification and treatment of students in college and university settings was never brought to committee.
Our hearts go out to the individuals and families who have been affected by the incident in Tucson. Until mental health disorders are as readily viewed by the government as diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure are, and until the stigma of mental health issues has been erased, our long list of violent behavior will not get any shorter—indeed, it will continue to grow.
MARCIE GRANAHAN, CEO
U.S. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association