Letter from the Editor: Michigans mental health crisis is affecting all of us. Something must be done – MLive.com

The stories MLive is telling this week about families struggling to find help for loved ones with mental illness are heartbreaking and infuriating.

This is more than great investigative journalism and storytelling. Were also pointing out ways to solve a problem of this complexity and magnitude.

Who owns this? Julie Mack asks and answers thoroughly in this eye-opening project that focuses on the lack of psychiatric beds in Michigan hospitals.

Its a very expensive issue, but there are 10 things that can be done right now that wouldnt cost money, said Mack, a public interest reporter for us who spent months researching and writing this project.

This matters not only because government should serve the needs of its citizens. It matters because the burden of the mental health crisis is being felt at a deeply personal level.

Macks extended family has dealt with mental health issues. The family of her editor, Shannon Murphy, has been affected. My family has been affected.

In Michigan, 20 percent of adults in any given year face a mental illness-related issue. Yet only 3 percent of insurance reimbursement dollars go toward treatment. And untreated mental health issues boomerang back onto society through violence, homelessness, and even physical issues like heart disease, high blood pressure and other ailments.

Macks stories, such as that of young mother Natasha Robinson, show how average people are left to advocate for mentally ill family members from a system that still tends to view mental health differently than physical health.

An a-ha moment for Mack at the origins of the project was when she found a state report that said it takes 19 calls to get an in-patient bed, on average, for adults with mental health issues. Its a black hole, she said.

One family Mack found had three children receiving mental-health services; one of the children also had kidney problems.

It was amazing, the contrasts of available health care for the kidney issue, compared to options for the mental health issues, she said. For families with kids with mental health problems, the attitude now seems to be, Sucks to be you. Wed never allow that toward a family with a kid with cancer.

Solutions start with the state of Michigan, which oversees health-care policy; it includes private insurers, which control reimbursement rates; and it includes hospital systems, which can add beds for psychiatric treatment.

There are lots of reasons the system isnt getting fixed funding difficulties, politics, psychiatrist shortages, private/public friction over reimbursements. Plus one big, obvious one:

Both the health-care system and public policy have marginalized mental illness, Mack said. The mental health system needs to be fully integrated into the health-care system. Right now, it is separate but not equal.

Mental health is health, period, and Macks reporting shows the costs of the status quo. This crisis is real, it affects you or someone you know, and some solutions are within reach.

The state oversees health-care policies, like granting certificates of need and Medicaid reimbursement rates, and it has some leverage over insurance companies, Mack said. At the end of the day, health-care providers in the state wont do it without government policies prompting it.

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Letter from the Editor: Michigans mental health crisis is affecting all of us. Something must be done - MLive.com