HOW WE HANDLE THE MENTALLY ILL

To those of you not from the Pittsburgh area, this may seem like a curious post. But I have long been concerned with how our government, both state and federal, handle the mentally ill. Mayview State Hospital is one of the few state hospitals left in Pennsylvania to treat the mentally ill. The hospital, which at its peak, cared for more than 350 people, will be closed, and patients who cannot be moved to homes in the community, will be moved to Torrance State Hospital, which handles mentally ill persons who have committed crimes. My problem with the closing of these kinds of facilities is what we do with people who are mentally ill. Releasing them is certainly not the answer. I believe that one reason that we have so many homeless people in this country can be directly tied to the last massive closings of mental hospitals across the country. Now the courts are involved, directing that people with mental illnesses be served, whenever possible, in community settings. Placing the mentally ill in community settings is not fair to the mentally ill or to the community itself. We need to re-examine how we care for our most vulnerable people.