Mental Health Services

President’s Bush New Freedom Commission on Mental Health concluded its study less than a year ago, finding that the mental health system in the United States is in shambles, requiring revolutionary change. Florida had its own Commission that presaged those conclusions. Just three years ago, the Florida Commission on Mental Health Services and Substance Abuse told Governor Bush and the Florida state legislature that the mental health system in their state was: complex, fragmented, uncoordinated, and often ineffective. Multiple programs, numerous and often conflicting funding streams, and bureaucratic barriers frustrate access for many Floridians needing care. The Commission concluded that Floridians with severe mental illnesses were particularly under-served, with less than 25 percent of the 610,000 adults with serious mental illnesses receiving any care at all in the public mental health system. Overwhelmed emergency rooms as well as jails and prisons filled with individuals with mental illnesses provided the Commission’s evidence of a failed mental health system. Hospital emergency departments have patients who...