I am lucky to currently work for an agency that provides sound therapeutic services to their clients. I can happily say that each and every client that is open in the company I work for is in need of this service despite their history of hospitalizations or lack thereof. A client’s need for services regarding taking care of themselves, their home, learning skills such as public transportation, obtaining a PCP, etc. will still be relevant regardless if they’ve been hospitalize 100 times or zero times. The clients we serve are unique individuals that cannot just be placed in one Yes/No category to justify their need for services.

If we look at all of the clients that will lose MHSS services if they’ve never been hospitalized or they’re lacking proof of hospitalization in the past, or don’t meet other “new” criteria that DMAS has implemented…where will they go? Who will be there to help them learn skills such as obtaining prescriptions for their mental illness or learning to advocate for themselves at the doctor’s office? These supported individuals will be left with no services, and will lose the progress they’ve made thus far, and it will potentially lead to hospitalizations, crime, exploitation of the client, lack of medications, and so on.

Why is this okay? The reason MHSS services exist is because there is a need for the service. It’s amazing to hear about clients that have never ever received services in the past and finally get a MHSS clinician for the first time in their life- they begin to make progress, become functioning individuals in the community, have a better quality of life, have a decrease in psychiatric hospitalizations and finally have someone one their team. Someone who wants to see them succeed in life and is going to be there to educate the individual to become independent and no longer need MHSS in the future.

As a member of this community, advocate for mental illness, and employee to a company that provides sound therapeutic services, I’m deeply saddened by the choices of DMAS. I hope that the individuals making these decisions take into consideration all of the lives that will be affected by these changes. Clients, employees, and employers will all take a hit from these changes.