Recently, a reader contacted me after seeing a social media post indicating that the East Central Regional Hospital (ECRH) will close soon.
Actually, according to former Augusta Mayor Bob Young, who is currently working on the project to create a veterans cemetery near the hospital property, the facility has been slated for closure for at least the last three years.
“I’m not really sure what the future plans are, but it won’t affect the cemetery plans,” Young said.
The impending closure of ECRH, commonly called Gracewood, is just part of a failed government policy that has been around for almost 45 years.
The movement to reform the psychiatric health system actually goes all the way back to the Kennedy era.
Not only did President Kennedy remember the euthanasia policy of the German Nazi regime that saw thousands of mentally ill people sent to the gas chambers, but mental illness affected his own family. Kennedy’s sister Rosemary was the victim of a failed lobotomy that left her in an almost vegetative state.
“We must promote – to the best of our ability and by all possible and appropriate means – the mental and physical health of all our citizens,” Kennedy said in 1963.
At the time, much of the public felt that “warehousing” the mentally ill was cruel and unusual punishment.
In 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a bipartisan bill that mostly repealed the Carter era Mental Health Systems Act, which, according to neuroscientist Divya Kakaiya writing for the San Diego Union-Tribune, basically defunded psychiatric hospitals in favor of community-based clinics.
As governor of California, Reagan had signed the 1967 Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, which made it illegal to hold a mentally-ill person against their will.
When I was working and saving up money for college, I worked at a Spinnakers restaurant. The fellow who worked as the dishwasher was a mentally disabled guy named Earl.
Earl had the body of a 50 year-old man, but the mind of a seven-year-old child.
Everyone in the restaurant got along great with Earl, and it did not take long for me to find out why. Earl had lived with his elderly mother until about five years before I was hired. When his mother passed away, Earl was left alone and he had no idea what to do.
The general manager of the restaurant, Val, learned of the situation and intervened. He was able to help Earl find his mother’s life insurance policy and settle out her estate. Val later found Earl an apartment within biking distance of the restaurant and once a month, he and the head bartender would go over to Earl’s apartment to balance his checkbook for him and pay his bills.
Val told me that he and his wife considered taking Earl into their home, but Earl had this hobby of collecting porn magazines and videos. Earl was very proud of his collection and Val and his wife determined that taking Earl in would not work because they had young children.
In short, the restaurant staff became Earl’s family, and without that bond, Earl most certainly would have been homeless because he lacked the skills to make his own way in the world. Earl had to be reminded constantly just to bathe regularly and to brush his teeth.
The policy of shutting down mental institutions has contributed greatly to the homeless problem that has reached epidemic levels in some cities.
Augusta is quickly becoming a prime example of a city being literally overrun with homeless people pitching tents in the woods behind Washington Road and right across the street from Sacred Heart Cultural Center.
The National Institute for Mental Health has tons of data showing the correlation between mental health and substance abuse. The need for drugs turns many to crime and the addicts end up in the judicial system and then are turned back out on the street to commit more crime.
According to the Washington Post’s database, nearly one-quarter of fatal police shootings are encounters between police and people suffering from mental illness.
One of the largest at-risk groups is combat veterans. To us civilians, modern war looks almost like a video game shown on television; however, combat veterans know that there are no “extra lives” in real warfare and science is just coming to grips with the impact warfare has on the human psyche.
Now, I am not suggesting society go back to the warehouse concept in dealing with the mentally ill, but we must understand that some people simply cannot take care of themselves.
It used to be that the elderly would get put out to pasture in “old folks homes” where many were sedated and became zombies, slurping pureed carrots while glued to a television having no clue what they were watching.
We, as a society, do not allow that anymore. Today’s assisted living facilities for the elderly are like upscale hotels with all the amenities of a Sandals Resort. Rather than being parked in front of a TV set, residents have all kinds of activities to keep them engaged and the results have been that they are happy and live longer.
We should have compassion for the people suffering from mental illness and part of that compassion includes sometimes not allowing them to wander the streets with no supervision.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter and Editorial Page Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
