Op-Ed: I’m tired. Sincerely, your local psychologist

The Idaho Panhandle is dealing with a severe shortage of mental health providers and it is taking a toll on everyone. Providers are confronted with patients angered by long waitlists, pushed for increased productivity by employers, and held responsible to find services (that often don’t exist) for patients in need.

Providers are tired of seeing voters elect officials who don’t support health care programs or levies that could fund mental health resources for public schools. Providers are tired of witnessing hospital systems reduce behavioral health services or eliminate services altogether.

Over time, conditions such as these lead to provider burnout. Unfortunately, as the need for mental health services increases, I’d argue that the number of mental health providers have declined in North Idaho.

Many agencies that end up dropping behavioral health services often don’t have a choice as they are struggling to survive on ever-lowering reimbursement rates paid out by insurances or are unable to find qualified staff. Eliminating these services will not remove the need for services nor the community problems that arise secondary to mental illness. Mental health patients will clog up even pricier services such as local emergency rooms, inpatient psychiatric stays and jail systems. Untreated chronic mental illness increases rates of crimes, school dropout, substance use, job loss and homelessness.

The mental health crisis is hitting America’s youth the hardest. Recently, the U.S. Surgeon General highlighted the nation’s rising youth mental health crisis citing pressures from social media, gun violence, death of loved ones, racial tensions, social isolation and mental health stigma as some of the contributing factors.

According to NAMI, 1 in 6 Idaho youth ages 6-17 meet diagnostic criteria for a mental health condition. In 2020, Idaho was the fifth highest state for rate of adolescent suicide. Insurmountable waitlists for youth services mean treatment is not accessed when needed.

I was recently accused by a patient of withholding referrals for specialty mental health providers. You can imagine their dismay when I didn’t have recommendations for ANY provider who had ANY immediate openings.

Behavioral health services in the schools are a huge preventative measure in reducing the mental health load on outpatient/inpatient services. Thus, when terms like “social emotional learning” are warped into a threat on a political belief system and/or parenting skills, or when the community does not vote for levies to increase school funding/resources, we mental health providers start feeling pretty helpless about how to attack this current crisis among our youth. We cannot help in isolation.

Mental health providers are leaving the North Idaho Panhandle and the providers who remain feel the increasing weight of growing mental health crisis. If the existing providers become too exhausted, they may opt to leave too. We cannot risk losing any more trained mental health specialists.

I hope community leaders and members will acknowledge and address the mental health crisis we are facing locally and nationally, at very least for the next generation.

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Dr. Hannah Nixon is a child psychologist at Big Lake Psychological Services and Heritage Health. She is one of the first psychologists in Idaho to have earned prescription privileges.