Reply #47: It wasn't Reagan [View All]

it happened on his watch, but the movement to close state run mental hospitals began long before Reagan was elected. Don't get me wrong, I couldn't stand Reagan, but this is one probelm I don't think we can blame on him.

If you must blame any one person, you can blame Geraldo Rivera. He did a series of stories as a reporter for a NYC TV station exposing the horrid conditions in mental hospitals in that state. I believe he won an emmy for that reporting. Anyway, that's when the ball started rolling to close these facilities nationwide. And since I can't stand Geraldo, I blame him for the problems we have today dealing with our mentally ill population.

Seriously, though, another factor is that many mental illnesses were NOT treated with drugs until the 1970s and early 1980s. So often the best choice in the case of seriously mentally ill persons was to institutionalize them. Then the drug makers started finding drugs that worked on many illnesses that were once thought to be untreatable. So life outside of an institution became a reachable goal for many of these patients.

The obvious problem today is how do you force these people to take medication. I have always heard that the vast majority can manage a certain amount of independent living as long as they take their meds. But convincing them to do that is another problem entirely.