Submitted by DJ, Mar 17, 2008 08:41

NYS's mental health system is the best on paper, the worst in practice. The hospitals discharge people "sicker and quicker". The perfect paperwork says the patient is supposed to come back for follow-up care. When the patient kills someone , that is a successful discharge for OMH. The paperwork was in order.

As for the new services they are supposed to be implementing, the one thing you can guarantee is they won't be targeted to the most seriously ill. NYS is much more interested in therapeutizing the 'worried well' than in getting care to chronic schizophrenics who are too psychoitc to care for themselves and genuinely need the humane intervention the state can provide.

The best think NYS has going for it is Assisted Outpatient Treatment, a program that was 100 percent Eliot Spitzers doing. On the other hand, the worst thing he did was hire the current OMH commissioner who believes the biggest issue facing people with mental illness is "stigma". Give me a break.

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