When I saw that
KPRC-TV reporter
Robert Arnold produced six installments of an investigation into Houston's Mental Health Crisis, I had to know how he did it. Imagine how many journalists would have been stopped by issues of access, lack of visual elements, medical privacy laws, family shame, the lack of newsroom resources needed to take on a topic like this and the fear that the audience would not care.
I interviewed Arnold via e-mail to find out more about this project.
Tompkins: Why did you want to tell this story?Arnold: Mental health is probably one of the most underreported, yet crucial, elements of our community. The lost productivity due to mental illness is in the billions, but lawmakers never seem to look at mental health care in its own light. Mental health usually seems to be an afterthought when it comes to funding. I started on this story when I did a ride-along and sat in on virtual reality training for Houston Police Department's
Crisis Intervention Team last summer. During that time I was stunned to see the amount of mental health calls officers receive every day and how many of these calls end up with people going to jail instead of a hospital. When I started checking, I found out about the lack of critical hospital bed space in Texas.
Lots of journalists avoid this story because a) It is not visual; b) There is so much patient privacy; and c) It may be difficult to show how the story affects the average person. How did you avoid those roadblocks to the story?
Arnold: Visuals are always a problem, but since those in the mental health industry have been screaming for help for so long, they were eager to work with a reporter on this type of a story. It was important to hit the heads of the major mental health care systems in my area and make them understand the type of story I was trying to put together.
There were a lot of phone calls and in-person meetings before the first frame was ever shot. Once everyone was comfortable with me and the direction the story was heading in, they bent over backwards to help me obtain the information I needed.
Privacy laws are always a problem, but it never hurts to ask the heads of these facilities whether they have any patients who wouldn't mind talking with a reporter.
It seems that police are as frustrated as anybody about this problem. What problem does this create for them?
Arnold: The frustration police have comes from arresting the same person over and over again. The real concern is that eventually the situation will become violent when it could have been prevented through long-term treatment (as was the case with the three examples in my story).
Officers will tell you how frustrating it is to take someone to jail for a petty crime that was clearly committed because of the person's mental illness (i.e. vagrancy, trespassing, public urination). The frustration really comes from the fact that this person will only get temporary treatment while in jail. When he or she gets out, the long-term care won't be there, so there is a high probability that person will go back into crisis and the cycle will start again.
I can only imagine what this kind of problem creates for families who want to get help for a loved one but can't until there is some horrible problem. Did you hear those stories?
Arnold: I heard story after story about families waiting for a loved one to go into crisis before they actually got help. Omar Esparza's family tried to get their son help for his depression but couldn't. Finally, the young man became violent, police were called, the situation went bad and Esparza was killed.
It took the SWAT team to finally get another man help after the family had been trying for months to get him into a hospital. Since we have a lack of bed space and scarce funds for long-term, outpatient treatment, the only way most people can access the system is through crisis. It says a lot when the largest mental health care facility in Texas is the Harris County jail.
Is money the answer here?
Arnold: Money is a big part of the problem, but not the only one. Obviously the mental health care community would like to see more money for more hospital beds and an expansion of outpatient treatment programs. Harris County lacks the basic infrastructure to handle mental health care. We have a lot of wonderful programs in Harris County, but none of these programs is under one umbrella.
Only recently has the mental health community come together to start discussing the issue. As a result, families find it very confusing to even know where to go for help. The law is very narrow in terms of who can get treatment on an outpatient basis. And the paperwork needed to apply for care is amazingly difficult, especially if a person doesn't have an advocate.
What did you learn from reporting this story?
Arnold: There still seems to be a sort of "ignorance" (my word) when it comes to mental illness. Many people don't understand mental illness is a biological problem, no different than cancer or diabetes. As result, mental illness is not always treated like other diseases when it comes to funding and resources. Many times a person's mental illness can be managed to the point where the person can live a full, productive life.
One of the doctors I spoke with during the story summed up the problem perfectly: "If someone walked into the emergency room with kidney failure, we would treat them and then put them on dialysis once they left the hospital. If we didn't put that person on dialysis we know that person would be right back in the emergency room a week later. Yet, we don't look at mental illness the same way. We stabilize a person then send them off without any follow-up care, so of course they eventually wind up back in the emergency room or many times jail. That doesn’t help anybody."
Based on my experiences the choice is between a state...
