LION AND THE LAMB: Are emergencies vulnerable to budgets?

Columns

August 26, 2008

By Frank Zingheim / Chronicle contributor The Crossville Chronicle Tue Aug 26, 2008, 04:37 PM CDT

What would happen if, for budgetary reasons, all emergency services for our state were eliminated?

No first responders, no police, or fire, or disaster recovery teams?

What would you do? How would you feel? Just take a moment and think about that! You’d be upset, or rather you’d be outraged – to be left in such a vulnerable position.

Well, that’s what happening to a segment of the population here in Tennessee, right now – to a very vulnerable segment of the population, persons with mental illness. Yes, that’s right; persons with mental illness who go into crisis will get no help unless they are on TennCare. Why, you ask? Because there is a lapse in funding for mental health crisis services (the emergency services for the mentally ill) for non-TennCare clients.

You remember, those non-TennCare clients from a few years ago, when we dropped 190,000 people from the TennCare rolls. Everyone was told, "Don’t worry, we’ll have a safety net to help the most severely affected." Well, that was then, this is now. This is an URGENT need in Middle Tennessee today, because bridge funding for this population is only guaranteed through August 31. However, you cannot get complacent that this is only a Middle Tennessee problem, because it will become a problem in West Tennessee Nov. 1 and in East Tennessee on Jan. 1.

Who are these people, and why do we care? Because people with mental illness who don’t get crisis services will end up in hospital emergency rooms, jails, the streets and the morgue. Each county will bear its burden for those services; just another unfunded mandate from the state.

How much is needed? At least $4.2 million is needed to fund these services. The ironic part is that the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (DMHDD) sent funds to TennCare over 12 years ago to provide services to this population.

If TennCare is no longer serving them, the funds should be returned to the Department of Mental Health. When asked about this – no response has been forthcoming from the TennCare Bureau.

Is there another problem in the current budget for persons with mental illness? Sadly, yes. State only and judicial TennCare enrollees will become the responsibility of the Department of Mental Health Jan. 1, 2009. That’s all well and good – it’s a good department with compassionate people. BUT, TennCare is only transferring a fraction of the funds back to DMHDD that it spent per year on the 6,000 people with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI) in this program.

Who are these people, and why do we care? This is a population of severely mentally ill people who would otherwise be uninsured. They are low income, below 100 percent poverty. This effectively cuts them off from any organized help. Anything they get from now on will be ad hoc; based on the generosity of the various counties. And, if you’ve been noticing, none of the counties are in great shape to adopt another unfunded mandate.

What’s needed? Sufficient funds moved from the TennCare Bureau to DMHDD to serve this population.

Now, you ask, what can I do? Well, for starters, you can write to Governor Bredesen. His address is: Tennessee State Capital, Nashville, TN 37243-0001; or phil.bredesen@state.tn.us. Ask him to provide emergency services and funds to pay for them for this most vulnerable population. Next, you can ask your friends and neighbors to do the same thing.

For those of us with family members in this affected population, we thank you.

This column is sponsored by Cumberland Countians for Peace and Justice, an organization composed of representatives from various churches in the area, and dedicated by the local writers to the theme that the lion and the lamb can and must learn to live together and grow in their relationship toward one another to ensure a better world. Opinions expressed in “Lion and the Lamb” columns are not necessarily those of the Crossville Chronicle publisher, editor or staff. For more information, contact Emerson Abts, editor, at 277-5101.

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