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Demand increases for mental health services

The rise being attributed to sluggish economy, substance abuse.

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11:04 PM Sunday, February 12, 2012

By Rick McCrabb

Staff Writer

Her father died in 2000, her younger brother committed suicide in 2006, and two years later, her mother died.

Only her older brother remained and he lived thousands of miles away. She was depressed, unable, or unwilling to work, and soon the registered nurse lost her job in a nursing home.

“I was going downhill fast,” she said of her life in October 2008. “I was more depressed than ever. My world was spinning out of control. I lost my will to live.”

That’s when Diane DeVore, 59, joined a growing number of Butler County residents who have received treatment from behavioral health professionals after attempting suicide.

While the number of suicides in Butler County has remained level since 2008, the demand for behavioral services has dramatically increased, according to local mental health officials.

The sharp increase is being blamed on the sluggish economy that has led to high unemployment — 7.9 percent in December in Butler County — and foreclosures and the prevalence of alcohol and drug abuse, officials said.

Plus, the need is coming at a different time for hospitals and mental illness institutions because, like most businesses, they’re reducing staff.

Bill Nordyke, registered nurse and coordinator of Fort Hamilton Hospital’s outpatient mental illness facility, was thankful voters renewed a 1-mill mental health levy in November, but said the county doesn’t have the “resources we’d like to have.”

Since 2007, the Butler County Mental Health Board’s budget has been reduced by more than $4 million, said Terry Royer, executive director of the board. In 2007, the board received $10.4 million from the state, but since then, the funds have steadily dropped until the $2.7 for this fiscal year, Royer said.

Meanwhile, the amount of assistance at the local level has increased from $5.9 million in 2007 to $9.7 million this year, he said.

There were 16 suicides — eight in Hamilton and Middletown — last year, according to reports obtained by the JournalNews/Middletown Journal.

In 2010, there were eight suicides in Middletown, six in 2009 and eight in 2008, according to the health department.

In Hamilton, there were 10 suicides in 2010, seven in 2009 and 15 in 2008, according to the city health department.

In Butler County, there were 44 suicides in 2011, 45 in 2010, 42 in 2009, and 53 in 2008, according to records obtained from the Butler County Mental Health Board.

But significantly more residents had suicidal thoughts, according to police records obtained by the JournalNews/Middletown Journal. Police in the two cities were called out on 765 suicide attempts last year: 616 in Hamilton and 149 in Middletown, records show.

The police calls ranged from residents who were threatening to harm themselves to those who said they tried to commit suicide.

About 80 percent of those who attempted suicide had abused alcohol or drugs, said Terry Royer, executive director of the Butler County Mental Health Board. Nordyke said January 2012 was the second busiest January for mental services at Fort Hamilton in the last 15 years. He said there were 19 admissions, four shy of the record set in January 2010.

Typically, he said, the need for mental services is high in January because the holidays are over and depression surfaces. He said people tend to delay visiting mental illness facilities during the holidays because they hope being around family and friends will improve their outlook.

But once the holidays end and the problems remain, people with mental illness “come out in droves,” he said.

“They feel helpless and hopeless,” he said. “And that’s when they believe suicide becomes an option, a big option. They say, ‘I feel the world would be a better place without me,’ or ‘This is the only option I have left.’ ”

Dr. Percy D. Mitchell Jr., who works at Atrium’s Behavioral Health Pavilion, said the three doctors there admit about 1,000 patients a year, and field hundreds more mental illness questions.

Many of his patients, he said, are in “a very helpless state of mind” because of the economy, low self-esteem, deep financial troubles or drug and alcohol abuse.

“They dig a hole and they can’t get out,” he said.

Because of reductions in the mental health profession, some patients who require immediate care aren’t seen for weeks, which only adds to their problems, Mitchell said. That pressure to see patients then falls on those who work in hospitals, he said.

Those in the hospital program are evaluated, and if they require additional services, they’re admitted to the hospital’s psychiatric unit. They may be prescribed medications and periodically meet with a social worker and attend group sessions.

Mitchell called those requiring mental services “a very difficult and growing population.”

Those who commit suicide are “extremely self-centered,” he said, because at that second, they’re blind to everything around them.

Mitchell said those who have tried to commit suicide have been asked, “Did you consider who you were leaving behind?”

Their answer, Mitchell said: “I didn’t think of that before.”

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