Word: illness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...York City's program does not ram the mentally ill into institutions. Instead the program gets the extremely ill into the hands of evaluators; who can prescribe treatment and locate housing in community residences for their patients. Opponents to the plan, lead by the American Civil Liberties Union, charge that the program constitutes a violation of individual rights. But the program only plucks those who do violence to others or themselves, and they can be held for no more than 90 days. People who are in need of help will get it now, whereas before the city was powerless...
...most of the mentally ill--who number 10 million, or 6 percent of the population--are not wandering the streets, dangerous and delirious. Most suffer quietly and not so quietly in their suburban homes, city apartments, workplaces and families...
...most mentally ill people, who suffer to a lesser degree, are just as needy of aid as those on the street. Just as bright and talented as the non-mentally ill, their contribution to society is stymied by their illness. College educated mentally ill languish in their destructive thoughts--not working, not getting out of the house, not really living...
CARE FOR the mentally ill has been treated as an all or nothing solution. First, the mentally ill were left to rot in human warehouses. Then they were deinstitutionalized and largely left to cope alone, without psychiatric care...
...state doesn't offer enough shelters for the mentally ill, and those it does provide often just offer "3 hots and a cot"--no professional psychiatric help, no career training, no personalized attention. Sheltered patients may get periodic check-ups and medication, but that isn't enough to turn their lives around...