Jackson Free Press

County sheriffs from across Mississippi yesterday urged Gov. Haley Barbour to spare the state's mental-health crisis centers, which Barbour targeted for closure in his 2011 budget proposal. Speaking at the state capitol, Mississippi Sheriffs Association President Willie March warned that closing the state Department of Mental Health's seven crisis-intervention centers would force counties to house mentally ill citizens in county jails.

"With a crisis center, you can pick (a mentally ill person) up, and in fifteen or thirty minutes, you'll have them in the crisis center," March said. If you close down the crisis center, they will sit in the county jail for weeks before they go to (the state mental hospital at) Whitfield because they don't have the bed for them."

Created in 1999, the state's seven county-based crisis-intervention centers represent a shift towards community-based mental-health services and away from large institutions. The 17-bed centers offer treatment to mentally ill individuals going through a psychiatric crisis, with the intention of stabilizing them so that they do not need to be admitted to Whitfield.

Barbour himself recognized the value of a decentralized, community-based approach in his Nov. 16 budget proposal, but he suggested that closing the crisis centers was a step in that direction.

"Over the years, the State has relied heavily on institutional care for mentally ill individuals. Going forward, the state needs to commit fewer fiscal resources to institutional care and more fiscal resources to home- and community-based care," Barbour said in his proposal. "Closing the facilities will put a greater reliance on home- and community-based services like those offered at the community mental health centers."

County sheriff's departments typically use the crisis centers when family members of a mentally ill person request police intervention. Without a crisis center available, county sheriff's departments will have no choice but to incarcerate the mentally ill, Jefferson County Sheriff Peter Walker said.

"Families don't want their (mentally ill) family members incarcerated," Walker said. "They need help; they need relief; but they don't want their family members incarcerated."

Previous Comments

ID

154613

Comment

What's the chances Barbour would listen?

Author

golden eagle

Date

2009-12-31T14:10:27-06:00

ID

154618

Comment

I wonder what effect the new Health Care Insurance reform bill will have for the mentally ill? Will the insurance that we will be required to purchase cover these people and the care they need? And if it does, does that mean we can shift from the publicly funded centers the Sheriff is talking about to private care facilities?

Author

WMartin

Date

2009-12-31T16:06:15-06:00

ID

154619

Comment

It's a fair question, WMartin, but I'm not sure it applies well to Mississippi. I did a quick google search for in-patient psychiatric hospitals and found only one private and four public facility. The Kaiser Foundation has some terrific resources about the bills, including a side-by-side comparison of the House and Senate versions.

Author

Ronni_Mott

Date

2009-12-31T18:17:58-06:00

ID

154620

Comment

I don't think so WMartin. Many of the mentally ill are disabled or in the process of becoming disabled, and thus usually qualify for Medicaid, sometimes retroactively. Most private hospitals don't want to deal with Medicaid because of reimbursement rates, not to say they never do but having too much Medicaid would lead the institution to go out of business. If the patients were shifted into private facilities the tendancy would be for less time spent in the institution and frequent readmissions, probably costing more money in the long run. The crisis centers are a safety net, and while home treatment is optimal, many of the patients don't take their medications making home care almost impossible. I'd rank crisis centers budget priority over many things, unless we want to live with the idea of putting patients in jail.

Author

GLewis

Date

2010-01-01T07:20:55-06:00