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MENTAL ILLNESS IN THE NEWS:

January 14, 2007

'It's not illegal to be mentally ill'

By Gary Grado

East Valley Scottsdale Tribune 'It's not illegal to be mentally ill'

Terry stayed still in the spotlight of the police car, one foot on a concrete bench that he had slept under minutes before. He lifted his eyes occasionally toward the Phoenix police officers who huddled close by, deciding what to do with him. Officer Dave Beauchamp approached him, guarded and ready for a possible fight. His line of questioning wasn't about broken laws, though.

"My preference is to get you the help you need," Beauchamp said. .East Valley Scottsdale Tribune 'It's not illegal to be mentally ill'

Sierra Vista Herald
May 6, 2006

Finding the Freedom to Heal

My name is Kim, and I am 34 years old. I have lived in Sierra Vista since 2003. Over the years, I have been diagnosed with several brain-based illnesses, including major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and borderline personality disorder. I also have struggled on and off with an eating disorder.
full story

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/05/05/local_news/features_and_opinions/columnist1.txt 

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Sierra Vista Herald

When a child has a mental illness
COMMENTARY BY PAT WICK

HERALD/REVIEW

This is not my story, but it is the story of a local woman willing to share about having children with brain-based disorders: Living with a child who has a mental illness, or brain-based disorder as I prefer to call it, is much like living with any child who has a chronic illness. You worry, you want to protect them, you take delight in small signs of success over the illness, and you love them. In other ways, living with these children is different and especially isolating.   full story

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/05/19/local_news/features_and_opinions/columnists/columnist1.txt

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Sierra Vista Herald

EASIER SAID THAN DONE: Trying to imagine
Commentary by Pat Wick

To imagine is a particular trait of being human. That means we can try to imagine what’s it like being diagnosed with a brain-based, or mental, illness.

I’ve had some bumps in the road, but with a little bending at the knees, I’ve been able to keep myself on the path. I imagine a brain-based illness might be like being broadsided and thrown completely off the path. Getting back on would be more difficult and staying there would require greater effort.

I’ve had moments of being disoriented. But those moments have gone as quickly as they came. It is not pleasant to imagine those moments turning into hours, days or weeks.  full story

http://www.svherald.com/articles/2006/05/26/local_news/features_and_opinions/columnists/columnist1.prt

'All our problem now'
Mentally ill homeless cost the Valley's cities on many levels, from ERs to parks to jails

Sept. 4, 2005 12:00 AM

The mentally ill homeless, a problem once concentrated in central Phoenix, is now a Valleywide concern.

That fact has been driven home this summer by the heat-related deaths of at least 32 homeless people throughout the Valley. Many of them had serious mental disorders and were too disoriented and confused to know to come in out of the terrible heat, police say. full article

WASHINGTON, July 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Thousands of children with mental illnesses await needed community mental health services in juvenile detention centers across the country, according to a new report released at a hearing in the U.S. Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee this morning.

"Children who need a safety net instead wind up waiting in juvenile detention," said Tammy Seltzer, senior staff attorney at the Washington-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. "Thousands of children are locked up because the system isn't offering them the help that they need when they need it."
http://releases.usnewswire.com/printing.asp?id=105-07072004

Hastert stops bill to boost mental illness coverage 
June 11, 2004
BY FREDERIC J. FROMMER 

WASHINGTON -- Aided by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), insurance companies successfully have blocked legislation to make them provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses if their policies include both.

President Bush endorsed the concept two years ago. 

Transforming Turmoil:  Artwork by the Mentally Ill on display

While attending a support group for parents of mentally ill children, some mothers noticed that again and again, amid their discussions of shared pain, glimpses of a shared creativity emerged, too. How wonderful, they thought, if others could see this side of their children; it might challenge some of the stigmas surrounding mental illness and give their children the opportunity to be recognized for something positive. 
http://www.oregonlive.com/entertainment/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/entertainment/107978796470951.xm

03/20/04
Police get primer on mental illness
Their numbers are not large, but the quality training they received may help reduce the jail population.

Twenty-nine police officers, including two from the Venice (CA) Police Department, other local police departments and the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, graduated Friday from the community's first-ever Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training at Keiser College in Sarasota.

"The idea is to re-educate our officers so they can help get people into crisis centers instead of jail," Sarasota County Health Department spokeswoman Dianne Shipley said.
http://www.venicegondolier.com/NewsArchive3/032004/vn7.htm

McCoy has paranoid schizophrenia, an acquaintance told reporters, citing what she'd been told by his family. Authorities won't confirm that, but have said McCoy has a mental illness and had stopped taking his medication.

The legal system will provide justice for McCoy and his victims, we're confident. 

But the fact that McCoy is mentally ill should not be used to further tar the much-stigmatized image of our neighbors who are mentally ill. We want to make sure they are treated justly by the public as well. Being ill is not a crime.   read full article

STRESS AILS CAREGIVERS 
Daily News (New York) ... 
More than 1 million New Yorkers are at increased risk for depression or anxiety, heart attack, stroke, muscle and joint problems, weakened immune systems and sometimes premature death. Those same New Yorkers also are prone to sleeplessness, fatigue, weight gain and gastrointestinal problems. Who are these individuals?
They are ordinary people who care for disabled or chronically ill family members or friends, sometimes for decades - without pay, training and/or support from the health care system.
more...

Senate bill defines mental illness 
Lawmakers are asked to clarify competency in SB49
By Jennifer Dobner
Deseret Morning News

When a death warrant was signed last summer for Roberto Arguelles, questions were raised about the state of the convicted killer's mental health.
In court hearings, Arguelles, 41, would spit and shout obscenities, rambling in long incoherent sentences. In his cell at the Utah State Prison, he ate his own feces, court documents and plastics.
The Department of Corrections asked the court for a competency evaluation to ensure the inmate understood the ramifications of the death warrant. But Arguelles, who raped and murdered four women, died of natural causes last fall before that evaluation was complete.   http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590041889,00.html

Ed Kuny and son, Thomas have learned much about about mental illness since Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia 29 years ago. 

By BIBB UNDERWOOD - Special Writer
"Thomas is very intelligent," Ed Kuny said, as he began this interview. "He is reasonably fluent in French and he does wonderful art. He has done more than 30 pictures and we are planning to take them to San Antonio to a 'starving artist' exhibit and see if he can sell a few."

Thomas is Ed Kuny's 44 year-old son who suffers from schizophrenia. Ed says Thomas was around 15 when they began to realize something was not normal, but he was not positively diagnosed until age 20.

"Because of Thomas, my wife, Sally, and I became very involved with the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). It literally saved our family. .."    http://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/articles/2004/02/01/news/news6.txt

 January 28, 2004

The Chronicle series on homelessness ("Shame of the City," Nov. 30- Dec. 4) forcefully and effectively reported how homeless people live and die on the streets of San Francisco. But the individual portraits are just the tip of the iceberg. 

The series underestimated the extent of mental illness among the city's homeless population. Unlike some of the authors' portraits, the vast majority of mentally ill people are not choosing to be homeless, nor are they stubbornly resisting help. The cold fact is that there is very little help available. People with serious mental illness are particularly vulnerable to becoming homeless. Debilitating symptoms, lack of social supports, ostracism from society and extreme poverty underlie this vulnerability. 
full story

Workplace stress and depression are exacting a heavy toll, particularly among conscientious employees "in their prime working years," say a group of corporate leaders who have pledged to conduct mental health audits of their own organizations.
A set of guidelines, to be released today by the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, says mental illness is now the leading cause of employee disability and, as such, should be addressed at the corporate board level.  http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040217/RGUID17/TPBusiness/TopStories

...studies by the National Institute of Mental Health and others have shown that 90 percent of suicides are related to undiagnosed, untreated, or inadequately treated mental illness...Montana has the second or third highest suicide rate in the country.  Suicide has hit the front page in Montana newspapers recently. There have been four suicides at the Montana State Prison in the past eight months.  On Jan. 29, Governor Judy Martz and Gail Gray, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, held a press conference dedicated to preventing teen suicides in Montana.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/02/17/opinions/a04021704_02.txt 

Troubled Students Feel College Nudges Them Off Campus
By KATHARINE A. KAPLAN
Harvard Crimson Staff Writer
Peter F. Lake ’81, a professor of law at Stetson University in Florida who has published a book on university legal obligations, says that nudging students off campus is one way universities currently deal with the burgeoning mental health “crisis” on campuses.

“There’s a number of approaches to the first generation of the problem, and one thing is to push the problem off campus,” Lake says. “It may not be the best thing for them or the school, but it’s one solution to the campus issue.”

Hyman says that liability is always a concern for medical institutions because of the number of lawsuits filed by patients...    http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357115&picnum=1

Mental health services widened
Area hospitals expanding role
By Brenda J. Buote, Globe Staff, 1/18/2004
As President Bush continues to push plans to improve access to mental health services nationwide, several hospitals in Boston's northern suburbs are taking steps to enhance their care of people with behavioral or mental health needs.  In recent months, hospitals from Lynn to Newburyport have invested tens of thousands of dollars in programs that seek to improve medical treatment for those who suffer from problems ranging from depression and anxiety to psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia...

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