By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, July 27
According to a recent League of Women Voters of Kansas study, the state”s mental health system is well-intended but underfunded.
And because it”s underfunded, the system can”t do all it”s expected to do.
“There are people waiting to get in to the state hospitals and there are people in the state hospitals waiting to return the community,” said Kay Hale, a retired Kansas Hospital Association executive who took part in the
two-year study
.
The system”s shortcomings, she said, have led to increased numbers of people who are mentally ill becoming homeless or incarcerated.
The study calls for additional spending
it doesn”t cite a specific amount
for community-based services and for additional acute-care hospital beds.
The current system, Hale said, is essentially two-tiered, delivering services in either community settings or in a state hospital.
The study calls for adding a third tier by creating a network of short-term, in-patient units throughout the state and converting the state hospitals in Larned and Osawatomie to acute care facilities that would also serve as centers of excellence for research and education.
Too many times, Hale said, people who need ongoing treatment are stabilized in one of the state hospitals and returned to the community without the services they need to cope with their illness.
“One of the flaws that was made clear to us by Dr. Roy Menninger is that so many times, mental illness is a chronic condition that requires ongoing care,” Hale said. “Yet the system uses a funding mechanism that”s based on a medical model that”s essentially short-term.”
Menninger is a former president and CEO of the famous Menninger psychiatric clinic.
Earlier this year, legislators approved spending $2.7 million to reopen a long-closed 30-bed unit at Osawatomie State Hospital. Plans call for the unit opening in 2009.
The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services is studying how
and whether
to encourage community hospitals to open or expand inpatient psychiatric units.
Plans call for each of the league”s seven chapters sending copies of the study to their respective legislators.
Hale, who serves on the boards of both state and Lawrence chapters, has begun attending meetings of the Mental Health Coalition of Kansas and the Governor’s Mental Health Services Planning Council.
The league has chapters in Wichita, Salina, Emporia, Manhattan, Topeka, Shawnee Mission and Lawrence. The Lawrence and Shawnee Mission chapters include Douglas and Johnson counties, respectively.
The league is a non-partisan, all-volunteer organization that encourages citizens to caste informed votes on a variety of issues. It does not endorse candidates.
“The value of the league study is that it represents a consensus of opinion. It”s not one person”s take on things, it”s what a fairly large group of educated individuals who”ve spent a lot of time studying an issue has concluded,” said Liz Smith, a member of the Lawrence chapter who helped with the study. “That”s what”s great about the league.”
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.