Fourteen years in the past, The Seattle Occasions revealed two items I wrote about my sister and our household’s battle to get her sustained psychological well being therapy.
The first was after she jumped off the Freeway 520 bridge on New 12 months’s Day 2010, and the second when the neighborhood got here collectively to assist us later that yr.
After being rescued from Lake Washington in 2010, my sister was hospitalized within the psychiatric unit at Harborview Medical Heart for a month and underwent 18 electroshock remedies earlier than being admitted to Western State Hospital in Tacoma. There, she tried to take her personal life once more by placing her head underneath the wheels of a semitruck.
By February 2011, my sister grew to become steady sufficient to be discharged to a residential psychological well being facility. We bought her automobile and spent down her belongings so she certified for Medicaid and Social Safety incapacity earnings.
Quick ahead to 2024: I’m blissful to report that my sister has resided on the similar Sound psychological well being facility in Redmond for the previous 13 years. However that’s about to vary.
King County has decided my sister is now doing too nicely to obtain the extent of care that has saved her secure and steady for greater than a decade. The county knowledgeable Sound that it’ll pay for my sister’s care solely by means of Might 31. King County bases this on a quantity system, which considers her one level higher than she must be to remain the place she is.
In 2010, I identified how onerous it’s to get somebody into the psychological well being care therapy system. In 2024, I’m discovering how onerous it’s to maintain them there.
The psychological well being system is a revolving door. And ultimately, it prices households and taxpayers extra grief and cash than if we handled those that want psychological well being providers with compassion and continuity of care.
Simply because somebody is doing nicely doesn’t imply that they don’t want a sustained stage of psychological well being providers. Would we cease giving a diabetic insulin if their glucose numbers are steady?
Her caregivers at Sound have informed the county that my sister ought to stay the place she is, the place the place she has rebuilt her life.
King County behavioral well being personnel are adamant that my sister should transfer, however have let her keep so long as we present progress towards transferring her out.
What does that progress entail? It started with a two-and-a-half-hour in-person evaluation for each of us on the state Division of Social and Well being Providers. It concerned a stroll down reminiscence lane of all of the involuntary therapy my sister has undergone starting in highschool.
The evaluation was used to find out what each day fee the state will give my sister for her care. With that, we have now been off to the races to search out an grownup household residence that has a gap and can take her for that fee. It’s an unlikely situation in prosperous Redmond.
If we do safe a spot in such a house, my sister will grow to be an outpatient and should discover a approach to get to her therapeutic and psychiatric medicine-monitoring appointments. At the moment, she receives these the place she lives. Up to now, she couldn’t encourage herself to go to outpatient appointments or take her meds, which resulted within the cycle of involuntary remedies.
My sister’s assessed each day fee can also be $20 lower than what is required to maintain her on the Sound facility in Redmond. The household is prohibited from supplementing that quantity.
It seems King County’s purpose is to get my sister off the county rolls to maximise their finances {dollars}, and onto the state rolls the place she’s going to now not be a price merchandise for the county. Can we please have a look at individuals who want persevering with psychological well being care as individuals and never as finances numbers?
Can we please cease the merry-go-round and maintain my sister the place she is secure and steady and has shaped sustaining relationships that give her goal and a few semblance of normalcy? Should psychological well being story come to a crushing finish?
Source link