Our mental health system is failing or it has failed in areas of this country. Our wait time map provides evidence.
As does this NAMI statistic:
There are university systems with such an indefinite weight and no possibility for any child or adolescent to be seen in a university setting. I’m aware that there are other settings, but it seems inequitable to me that there could be such a possibility. Realize that those without money is to pay high priced child psychiatrist without insurance will never be able to get the care that they need. So not only does it take on average 8 years to get care but it hits the racial minorities hardest, and those that do not have money also in the same position. There are university systems also where the kids wait so long that they’re no longer eligible to be seen because now they are above the age to be seen (they have ‘aged-out’ which should never be a word or a term in our language but unfortunately it is).
Primary prevention does not exist
There is no primary prevention in psychiatry. It doesn’t exist. This means we allow mental illness to happen and we are not on the forefront, on the true front line. But the front line is not enough it’s where we go beyond in terms of reaching out. This is really the tip of the spear, and to solve any problem or crisis and mental health needs an Outreach model of primary prevention so that we never see mental illness develop. Once mental illness develops, it is hard to treat and can be downright dangerous. We need to be the tip of the spear.
Anyone who believes they have the best psychiatrist or the best psychologist – does not realize what an inequitable statement that is – as there are those who have no care. In the words of Martin Luther King “any Injustice is a threat of all Justice” and it is a complicit wrong to accept any wrong.
