Editorial: Drought ends in mental health care

Wednesday, June 4, 1997 | 10:33 a.m.

AFTER a six-year drought, the state is finally facing its responsibilities in providing adequate mental health care.

The Legislature this week is promoting a nearly 50 percent increase in funding for mental health programs to meet the growing number of clients and to atone for cuts in the budget in late 1991.

The increase should eliminate a year-long waiting list of about 300 people who need special mental retardation services, the source of increasing complaints to legislators. An attempt more than a year ago to increase the budget ran into resistance from Gov. Bob Miller's budget experts.

Now, Miller has acknowledged the cuts were a mistake and has recommended funding for about 3,000 new cases a year through 1999. The Assembly Ways and Means Committee took Miller's proposal a notch higher, increasing the estimated cases by another 1,600.

Families with mentally retarded relatives will benefit. They will have increased workshop and training opportunities, easing an often enormous emotional strain in the home. Many of the retarded can eventually achieve relatively independent, productive lives.

Prescriptions for anti-psychotic drugs will be changed to formulas with fewer side effects. This changeover will cost the state an additional $7 a day per patient but will prevent health and behavior problems.

Other features of the budget include: an intervention program for severely mentally ill patients to prevent confinement, and new clinics for Pahrump and Mesquite.

The Legislature and the governor have finally acknowledged that adequate funding for mental health programs is not only more humane, it is cheaper in the long run. The social costs of not treating such patients can far outrun a relatively modest investment beforehand.

The sad thing is that many people endured little or no care for the last six years, amid tight state budgets and inadequate estimates on population growth. Now, finally the problem is being corrected.

All this contains a painful lesson. Cutting corners on social problems can be expensive and painful. And after those cuts occur, it's doubly difficult to catch up.