Governor calls for reform at mental health summit

Kelcy Dolan
Posted 6/9/15

“This is an issue of friends and family, sons and daughters. This is about the people we love whose lives are being affected or ruined by these problems. We all know someone we love who needs us to …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

E-mail
Password
Log in

Governor calls for reform at mental health summit

Posted

“This is an issue of friends and family, sons and daughters. This is about the people we love whose lives are being affected or ruined by these problems. We all know someone we love who needs us to do a better job,” Governor Gina Raimondo said Monday morning at the Rhode Island Mental Health Summit held at the Radisson Airport Hotel.

The Department of Behavioral Healthcare Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, BHDDH, with Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island/Beacon Health Strategies and United Healthcare/Optum as sponsors, hosted the daylong summit.

Authorities on mental and behavioral health from across the state attended the event to hear speakers address three topics of concern and then discuss the best ways in which to bring about reform throughout the state.

The topics of discussion were Rhode Island’s “opiod addiction epidemic,” the incarceration of those individuals suffering from addiction or mental illness and the “integration of care” for those with a mental illness.

According to the Department of Health, in 2014 Rhode Island experienced 239 accidental overdose deaths and, so far this year, as of the beginning of April, there were 56.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), in a 2010 State Advocacy report said nearly 38,000 adults and 11,000 children in Rhode Island suffer from a serious mental health condition.

NAMI estimated that in 2010, Rhode Island’s public mental health system only served 19 percent of adults with a mental health condition.

Similarly, NAMI found that in 2008, 600 people with a mental illness were incarcerated.

In her opening statements Raimondo said people have been too afraid to discuss, nevertheless tackle, mental health because of the stigma surrounding it, but she wanted to see “reasonable and achievable goals” made by the end of the day.

Maria Montanaro, director of BHDDH, said by the end of the summit a summary and action plan would be created and later distributed to those organizations essential in implementing change, “so that we understand as a community and as a state what we have to do.”

Elizabeth Roberts, Rhode Island Secretary of Health & Human Services, said she wanted to see a “foundation” to work off of. She said, “We need to realign the money we spend” in a way to create change that will support those suffering from addiction or mental illness and their families.

“Nothing will work if we don’t try,” she said.

Raimondo felt that, because every state in the country is dealing with issues concerning mental health, Rhode Island has an opportunity to become a leader in the field, especially because Rhode Island’s small size allows for most of the stakeholders to come together at the same time.

The governor stressed the need for coordinated care so individuals with mental illness aren’t “slipping through the cracks.”

“Once upon a time Rhode Island made big changes,” Raimondo said, “and today is about the next wave of reform.”

Montanaro said, “We need to do so much better than we have been.”

For more information on the summit or BHDDH visit their website at www.bhddh.ri.gov.

Comments

1 comment on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here

  • bendover

    I would have thought a mental health summit would be held at the epicenter of mental issues, the State House.

    Tuesday, June 9, 2015 Report this