SEIU Local 509 members Jill Homer and Scott Bezzini were quoted in a New York Times article about the state of the mental health system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: A Schizophrenic, a Slain Worker, Troubling Questions
This unnerves many mental health professionals. Not only do they believe that there are already far too few beds for new cases — “It’s harder to get into a state hospital than into Harvard Medical School,” Dr. Duckworth said — but they also worry about discharging long-institutionalized patients into communities whose resources are clearly strained.
“It’s sort of a cross your fingers and pray approach,” said Scott Bezzini, a mental health outreach worker who is on leave to work for his union.
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For those in the community, the department has shifted in recent years from a model of care that sees serious mental illness as a long-term disability to a “recovery” model, which seeks to move clients into increasingly less restrictive, less supervised and less costly living situations.
“It’s all about getting people discharged as opposed to getting them treatment,” said Jill Homer, a state-employed case manager for three decades, who nonetheless feels that the system has “fumbled through” its downsizing fairly well.
Special thanks go to Toby Fisher from SEIU, also quoted in the article, who worked hard to coordinate our input on the article and wrote a follow up on Supporting People, Supporting Communities
