Mental Health Crisis Office

Looks like it was really nice there Diane,eddie,xx

Well, it was adequate - lol! Thanks, Eddie.

Once I had to work here, the biggest clinic in our countyy (Baden Württemberg) :-)

Oooh, that place is huge! Very interesting,, Rapi.

Here I am just listening to an interesting talk .

It seems a waste of a serviceable facility, but I presume the population of Klamath County is declining so not so much need for community services. Or have I got it totally wrong? Money (or the lack of it) is normally the key to getting to the bottom of these things.

Andy.... mental health services here are chronically under-served... they just throw people in prison instead... Crisis isnt an adequate word for the state of play here. Its desperate.

Plus.. as Diane explained to you .. asbestos.... the place was full of asbestos.

Jails and prisons have turned into what used to be crisis services and mental hospitals. This is "saving money." Yet, mental health workers are expected to provide the same services without the backup and resources of public funding. For the most part, they soldier on and do provide the services, but at increased risk of more homeless clients, more ER visits, massive staff burnout,* staff turnover and early retirement (a-hem!). It will get much, much worse if/when Speaker of the House Paul Ryan gets his way with our medical system.

This is all happening because Americans, as a rule, don't care about mental illness. They just don't want to see it on the streets.

*Including emergency room and jail staff!

It was less serviceable over time and when the county was thinking about how to refurbish it, the inspector found a lot of asbestos. So, it was impossible to repair without disturbing the asbestos, also too costly to remove it. So, there it sits years later, as the county has no money to tear it down - which also requires a fortune just to deal with the asbestos. It was cheaper and safer to build a new one.

Ohhh no, not fewer "customers" for treatment, even more than when I left. There have been some budget reductions and more to come, so fewer professionals to do the work for an increased caseload. Population has not declined much, if at all, because there are more jobs than ten years ago. That doesn't mean the town is rolling in money, but just less destitute. Yes, everything is about money!

It's the same in much of the so-called civilized world I think. And yet in countries such as Spain, there seems to be more of a family-orientated culture (even now) and families seem more willing to shoulder much of the burden of mental illness withing the family as well as accepting that the elderly should be cared for at home for as long as possible too. But even here the traditional family structure is starting to fail, so I doubt that the current state of affairs can last much longer, sadly.

Nightmare.. in way too many ways.

Mostly in ways that had no relationship to doing the actual work!

The should put Schtrumpf in it now.