State should do more to treat mentally ill
The following is a Counterpoint:
By Shirley Vann
I have been answering the telephone for the National Alliance on Mental Illness/NAMI Guilford County since October 1996. NAMI offers support and education to mental health consumers and their families. It also brings the needs of the mentally ill to the attention of local, state and federal officials in an effort to improve treatment and access to treatment. Additionally, we promote research into the causes and treatment of brain disorders.
Families in the throes of mental illness frequently call NAMI to inquire about good group homes for their loved ones. Sadly, the answer to this question is slim to none.
For this reason, persons diagnosed with serious mental illness are often warehoused in homes for the elderly, as was Anthony Zichi. Sadly, this young man, through no fault of his own, developed schizophrenia at age 20.
There were several young people with this diagnosis enrolled in a recent NAMI "In Our Own Voice" class on public speaking. With proper treatment, many who are so diagnosed go on to live fruitful lives.
Not so with Anthony Zichi. The prayers and pleas of his family for long-term, meaningful treatment fell on the deaf ears in our state's mental health system.
North Carolina received a "D" for service in NAMI's "Grading the States 2006" report on care for those with serious mental illness. Yet, as new and improved medications become available, the outlook for persons diagnosed with serious mental illness is brighter than ever before.
Treatment works.
It's very sad that so little help was made available to the Zichi family as they knocked on doors until their knuckles bled. Mental illness strikes one in every five households.
A robust young man recently told me he would never develop a mental illness because he worked out daily in the gym. When I handed him a list of 15 famous sports figures diagnosed with serious mental illness, he was strangely silent.
The writer lives in Greensboro.