The Boston Globe’s Spotlight team struck gold once again this summer, breaking a three-part series that outlined the deep-rooted flaws in the Commonwealth’s mental health systems. The report found that the system was overrun with “threadbare policies, broken promises, short-sighted decisions, and persistent underfunding over decades.”
Consequently, the investigation stated, “the seriously mentally ill, including those at greatest risk of harming others or themselves, are far too often left in the care of parents, police, prison guards, judges, shelter works, and emergency personnel — almost anyone, in fact, but professionals trained to deal with their needs.”
Seemingly responding to the call of the Spotlight team once again, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker took a step toward remedy on Tuesday, by announcing shifts within Massachusetts’ mental health system, particularly Bridgewater State Hospital. According to a Boston Globe article, “the administration plans to shift mentally ill inmates convicted of state crimes out of the state prison in Bridgewater and into a separate facility.” Baker also announced that he plans to “beef up mental health services and place sharp limits on the contact that correctional officers have with inmates,” according to the Globe.
In Massachusetts and in Boston, mental illness is a fact that confronts us everyday. It is certainly not in the shadows, yet is treated as a murky and misunderstood illness. However it is just that — an illness — and it deserves as much care as a broken bone or a cancerous tumor.
By establishing a course of action for this issue, Baker is first acknowledging its necessity. It also creates the perception that mental illness is more mainstream, eliciting empathy and understanding rather than scrutiny and judgement. Patients suffering from mental illness are people in need of help, and deserve to be treated professionally on a case-by-case basis. Luckily, Massachusetts houses some of the brightest medical minds who are initiating mental illness research daily. We have the resources; we just have to get them to work.
Baker’s first steps are admirable, in terms of acknowledgement and response time, but they are still merely first steps. The fight for equality for those suffering from mental illnesses has only just begun, and the primary mountain to climb is a financial one.
Training, personnel, transfer services, facilities, treatment costs and so many more variables that add into this equation of change are nothing less than extremely costly. Many months of planning and convincing are the least to be expected to bring about change. It is one thing to make a statement, but quite another to actually implement proposed changes in a meaningful way.
It is also worth noting, without blatantly turning around and patting our industry on the back, that the work of journalists has once again initiated change in the Commonwealth. The Spotlight team is partially responsible for uncovering a number of travesties within Massachusetts, and their fine work speaks to the necessity of investigative journalism across the nation.
Baker has an opportunity as this point in time; he can either capitalize on Spotlight’s momentum and use the public support to mount financial obstacles that will inevitably be in the way, or allow the momentum to flounder and return to the status quo. The responsibility is on him, in conjunction with our elected officials, to make the right decision.
