Discussion

• butte :

  We need to do more than hold a vigil. We need to start demanding that the broken mental health system be fixed.
  It is inexcusable that someone who fit the profile of a mass murdered so exactly should go untreated, even after he was identified as potentially dangerous, to the eventual cost of 33 lives.
  This is too high a price to pay. Yet, every time mental health reform is mentioned, there are always bean-counters who talk about the high financial caring for the mentally ill. Most insurance companies refuse to cover mental illness, since it is a chronic, and not a short-term problem.
  The insurance companies and the politicians, who keep talking about money refuse to count the cost in terms of suffering for mentally ill people, their families and potential victims.
  Most mentally ill people need treatment and support, many for the rest of their lives.
  A large portion of homeless are mentally ill people who have fallen through the cracks. Most of the time they are victims, of crimes, of our neglect, of their own private hells. Sometimes they are predators.
  This rampage at Virginia Tech needs to serve as a wake-up call.
  We need mental health reform!

  Posted on April 20, 2007 6:24 AM

• Justin Krebs :

  Butte - I agree -- more needs to be done to respond to this horrible incident and prevent future cases. Do you know any particularly good advocacy organizations working on mental health issues?

  Can you think of any initiative or group that -- had it been fully supported in the past -- could have helped prevent this loss of life?

  Posted on April 20, 2007 7:26 AM