Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

guest column:

Leaders fail to address mental health crisis at home

Flint, Mich., and Nevada are both having public-health crises, but we’re just not hearing much about the one here.

In Flint, authorities are trying to catch up on a problem they had ignored for too long: lead-tainted drinking water. In contrast, Nevada has wallowed in a mental health crisis for years; witness the state’s suicide rate, which is higher than the national average.

Unlike the water crisis in Flint, which has generated a uproar over the lack of public-health vigilance, Nevada’s mental health emergency is considered by many in Carson City to be business as usual, something to be shrugged off as a problem not easily solved, like smog. It’s still a public-health crisis, but one that has become over time just an accepted part of the modern-day Nevada experience.

The Flint story upsets me, in part because it’s nothing new. Government officials, trying to save a buck, put the almighty dollar before the state’s health. And it seems like it’s always the low income who pay the price. In the case of Flint, local officials were out to save $100 a day by not treating their polluted water with anti-corrosion treatments, despite the fact that this violated federal law.

While pediatricians there found double and triple the normal amounts of lead in children’s blood, a poisoning crisis with long-term effects, government officials lied about it, and the governor stood his ground despite national cries for his resignation.

President Barack Obama’s visit to the poisoned city made it clear: No matter what Michigan officials said, the situation in Flint was a public-health crisis, an emergency requiring immediate measures. Or as he put it, it was an “inexplicable and inexcusable” situation.

Back here in Nevada, where our state’s mental health crisis is considered just part of the daily life of a state with no income tax to solve its social problems, no one at the top is calling it an emergency. They should. Knowing that only about one-third of Nevada’s nearly 100,000 seriously mentally ill people are getting help, according to federal data, and knowing that our state’s geriatric suicide rate is second in the nation, and that the second-leading cause of death among youths ages 15-24 is suicide, they should be ready to handle a crisis.

What will it take before Gov. Brian Sandoval and the Legislature treat it as such? Will an American president fly in on Air Force One to call our state’s mental health situation “inexplicable and inexcusable?”

Maybe Nevada’s mentally ill need the support of a wealthy lobby that contributes to political campaigns and influences legislation. Understandably, we’re never going to be like the gaming and mining lobbies, but protecting a state’s health, as the governor of Michigan is finding out, is part of their job description.

I struggled with despair, homelessness and other quality-of-life issues until I got help, largely from my family. Others aren’t so fortunate. They need the government to provide medical and social assistance.

Driving down the streets of Reno, I am often bewildered by the numbers of gigantic billboards reminding drivers to watch out for cyclists. Why can’t there be billboards with proactive mental health messages?

Flint’s senior investigators said this month that if government officials are found to be grossly negligent with regard to their water situation, they could face manslaughter charges.

Nevada should be no different. It’s in denial, and our state’s leaders should be held accountable for their lack of action.

Kim Palchikoff is studying social work at UNR and writes about mental health.

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