| There were a lot of disgraceful outcomes from the Engler years, and perhaps the worst was the quick work that was made on the mental health safety net. Hospitals were closed, and patients were instead softly transferred from state care in them to state care in the prison system. Benevolent overlord Rick Michigan has brought back one of the architects of that, to run the same programs he did 20 years ago. Gov. Rick Snyder's surprise appointment of James Haveman to head the Department of Community Health raises troubling questions about the direction of mental health care in Michigan. During the administration of Gov. John Engler, Haveman was the department head largely responsible for sweeping changes that undermined community mental health care and, in effect, pushed tens of thousands of mentally ill people into jails, homeless shelters, prisons and hospital emergency rooms, as reported in this year's Free Press editorial page series, "Criminal Negligence."
I do have to caveat this by pointing out that they de-institutionalized people with developmental disabilities and put them into community settings with care programs focused on the individual, which was an improvement. The problem, however, is that the resources put behind this has shrunk over the years, and we're moving from community-based care to community based institutionalizing for the lack of resources. Also, if this editorial isto be believed, we'll see the widening of the gulf between mental and physical health at a time when things are going in the opposite direction ... all because benevolent overlord Rick Michigan hired a malevolent overlord to take care of people. |
