The shooting of a Roosevelt High School student by a Fresno police officer should be a wakeup call to a county that has been lacking in adequate mental health care for children for decades and for years has had no in-patient mental health facility for children and adolescents.
As we wrote in an editorial in Sunday's Bee, the incident has caught the attention of Fresno Mayor Alan Autry and Police Chief Jerry Dyer. That's excellent. There are painfully few champions of the mentally ill because there is a pointless stigma attached to mental health. It's a ridiculous discrimination because almost every family is touched in some way by mental illness. The police chief and the mayor, because of their wide view of the city, can see it all quite plainly. As one community activist puts it, "All roads lead to mental health." That's not an exaggeration.
The unfortunate part is that it resonds to treatment very well, in fact the treatment is often more successful than the protocols for other chronic illnessnesss uch as diabetes or heart disease. Left untreated, however, and results are in the news every day.
Too much money, some say. Too much risk. Really? Well, think about the costs and risks of mental illness to our justice system, our social welfare system, our education system.
J. Michael Gallagher, a health care expert, who now lives in Incline Village, wrote about mental health care in Fresno over the years in a Valley Voices essay.
There is a lot we still do not know about the tragedy at Roosevelt High. But at the very least, we must learn as we go from this heartbreak, promising to do all that is in our power to ensure that it never happens again.
Maybe it's as simple as teaching ignorant people how to eat. This kid obviously came from a family of diabetics. It's the processed food and gmo corn in their diets. Another lesson painfully learned, is that these seratonin reuptake inhibitors are very much experimetal, and with the high rates of suicides among users of this class of drugs...oh never mind, big-pharma, will do whatever they want, the FDA works for them not the American people,it's deregulation at it's worst...apropos of nothing,...2000 years ago another Jesus committed "suicide by centurion".
Better mental healthcare is a real necessity is definately needed. Many cases that play out in the news have to do with people not taking the meds that were prescribed to them as well. Better education for the parents of a mentally ill child is also needed so they can better identify when their child is in a situation that needs attention.
when I was standing in line at savemart behind the recently aprehended murderer, his girlfriend and child, (I'm still waiting for my tip reward),I noticed that their basket was full, but there was no food in it, just boxes of processed crap...diet matters.
In response to "Shooting highlights mental health" and "local leaders look for lessons from tragedy" I would like to add a few thoughts of my own.
First, is it newsworthy to report the deceased as a "special-education student"? I recall a column last week that used the same verbiage. Why do readers have to put up with such discriminatory dribble from the Fresno Bee?
I prefer in the future for the editor and writer to voluntarily participate in research - specifically a special-education class, and a voluntary 72-hour psychiatric hold at a local mental facility. Then they can speak from the heart, as an expert, to the mentally ill readers.
Secondly, "The chief [Dyer] and Mayor Alan Autry proposed a partnership this week involving the city, county and the school district to share information about mentally ill students."
Since when do psychiatric patients need more red tape to get help from the mental services community?
Why do government leaders think mental health services can benefit from their late intervention?
And since I last read, the State has a strict privacy policy when it comes to patient-doctor privilege, and confidentiality.
How much of the taxpayers money will be wasted on meetings before they figure that out, and have to go back to the drawing board?
We need our government leaders, the Bee staff, and FUSD employees to do everyone a favor in the midst of this recent shooting, and check themselves into a mental hospital to learn something special about mental defenses. Maybe they will tell us why patients strike out at others when they cannot keep their emotions in check, maybe they can explain how violence begets violence, or why the psychotropic medications take so long to work when the patient is switched from pill to pill, doctor to doctor, insurance plan to insurance plan, and clinic to clinic.
We live in an instant fix, got to have the answer now society. And until we're informed about discrimination of mentally ill persons, then we are far from understanding the stigma the dearly departed Mr. Carrizales.
Shame on you Fresno Bee!
This truly was a tragedy for our community. This plays out in our community everyday though as families struggle with mental illness. True, it is not as dramatic as this event, however, poor, midlle class and affluent families deal with a system of providers both public and private that do not have sufficient resources to meet all of the needs. Gail, you need to know that the county is on the cusp of opening aregional psych inpatient unit for children in Fresno. We are currently in negotiations with community hospital. We are also leading on innovative new housing programs anf services for our youth. I would like to invite you to sit down with us to see what agreat leadership team that we have and the partnerships that we are forming in the community. We are working with people who are on the ground, doing the work along with great organizations like, NAMI, Alliant Univ, UCSF and others.