Mental Health

Even a $3.7 billion federal lifesaver isn't enough to solve all of Maryland's budget quandaries. While the state is now flush with federal dollars for education, Medicaid and infrastructure projects, other state functions, among them the prison system, mental health programs and juvenile justice, are facing significant cutbacks. In some cases, lawmakers and advocates have questioned how agencies will be able to function within constrained budgets. Meanwhile, the economy continues to deteriorate and state officials are bracing for more bad news later this month when the latest estimates of tax revenues are due. Analysts have warned that annual collections have fallen as much as $500 million below expectations for the current budget year and next.

WASHINGTON -- Contractors who have worked in Iraq are returning home with the same kinds of combat-related mental health problems that afflict U.S. military personnel, according to contractors, industry officials and mental health experts. But, they say, the private workers are largely left on their own to find care, and their problems often go ignored or are inadequately treated. A vast second army of contractors - up to 180,000 Americans, Iraqis and other foreigners - are working for the U.S. government in Iraq.

The Maryland State Police are requiring people who want to buy firearms to sign a release allowing authorities to check whether they have ever resided in a state mental health institution for 30 days or more. In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings this year, Gov. Martin O'Malley and state Health Secretary John M. Colmers gave their blessing to the state police to broaden the firearms application -- an effort, officials said, to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining guns. Before the change, "we were relying on your honesty as an applicant that you were telling us the truth about your mental health history," said Greg Shipley, a spokesman for the state police.

207 -- The number of murders or unjustified homicides in Baltimore so far, as of 12:01 a.m. Thursday. By Aug. 30, 2006, the city had recorded 179 murders. SOURCE BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT Saturday Mailbox XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXX FIRE STUFF Kevin........ generally speaking, the red cross is a non profit organization. We work under a ....our basic charter eminates from congress. Red cross charted to resond to disasters in 1907....goes back tko clara barton. That's kind of where the beginina comes from.

SAN FRANCISCO -- The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was accused in a lawsuit yesterday of "shameful failures" in providing medical and mental health care to injured servicemen returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to a 73-page lawsuit, which is proposed for class-action status on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, "The VA's outmoded systems for providing medical care and disability benefits [have been overwhelmed by] the huge influx of injured troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan."

Let's fund the care kids need to flourish In telling the tale of the tragic death of Davon Qualls, The Sun's article "Failed by the system - taken by the streets" (Oct. 14) puts a name and a face to our nation's failure to adequately fund effective mental health services for youths. This senseless death is upsetting but not surprising. National data show that only one out of three children with a serious emotional disturbance receives needed mental health services, and for those who do get services, help often arrives years after the onset of illness.

BLACKSBURG, Va. -- Officials at Virginia Tech defended yesterday their decision to allow the gunman in Monday's rampage to return to campus after he was released from a psychiatric facility, even though they were aware of his troubled mental history and potential for violence. Cho Seung-Hui, 23, the student who killed himself and 32 others, received outpatient psychiatric care ordered for him after he was involuntarily hospitalized and reportedly suicidal in late 2005. Christopher Flynn, director of the campus counseling service, said the university had played no role in monitoring Cho's psychiatric treatment.

TUESDAY Mental Health Agency -- The Anne Arundel County Mental Health Agency Board of Directors will meet at 4 p.m. at 2664 Riva Road, Heritage Office Complex, Annapolis, to review and implement a policy for individuals accessing public mental health services. 410-222-7858. Odenton Oversight Committee -- The Odenton Town Center Plan Oversight Committee will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Western District Police Station, 8273 Telegraph Road. The committee is an advocate for Odenton community property owners, developers and businesses in the growth management area.

"Help is on the way." That's what presidential candidate George W. Bush promised our military seven years ago. Of all the broken promises of the Uniter-Not-Divider's 2000 campaign of mass deception, this has to be the most shameful, because our military, though still the strongest in the world, is under severe duress. Strains can be seen almost everywhere you look. Before he left his position as Army chief of staff last month, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker told the Senate Armed Services Committee that our troops in the field are underserved because of a lack of support personnel, such as translators.

Barbara W. Cahn, an executive with mental health care insurers who earlier had set up an innovative program to help new widows cope, died of cancer Sunday at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Woodbrook resident was 64. Born Barbara Weissman in Wilkes Barre, Pa., she came to Baltimore to attend Goucher College, where she graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in American studies. She married attorney Charles Cahn II in 1963, and while raising their three children, she became a Sinai Hospital volunteer and won the 1968 Harry Greenstein Award from Associated Jewish Charities for her work with the charity's young leadership.

Davis deserves confirmation Professor Carl Tobias' article in Tuesday's paper ("Fill the 4th Circuit's vacancies now," Oct. 6) is right on the money. Judge Andre Davis is in limbo all because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will not push for a full floor vote to elevate Judge Davis to the 4th Circuit, thus leaving "only" four other vacancies. I used to believe the federal judiciary was the most efficient branch of government in the history of the world. But now Senator Reid is in effect telling the poor saps on the 4th Circuit, "Dig a hole six feet deep; just don't use a shovel."

A proposal by Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration to shutter a state-run psychiatric hospital as a cost-saving measure has come under increased scrutiny, and a top fiscal officer questioned whether the closure should move forward. The Board of Public Works, a three-member body including O'Malley, Comptroller Peter Franchot and Treasurer Nancy K. Kopp, unanimously approved the closure of the Upper Shore Community Mental Health Center in Chestertown in August as part of several hundred million dollars in state budget cuts.

Deneice Valentine was a wife, mother and college-educated professional with a family income in six figures. But for a year and a half in the late 1990s, she slept in a small park across the street from Morgan State University. Valentine was diagnosed with major depression and a stress disorder but lost her mental health insurance after her divorce. She eventually lost her Baltimore home, custody of her children and the ability to care for herself. Stories like hers are the reason that mental health advocates have joined the immense lobbying effort in Washington on health care reform.

Gov. Martin O'Malley learned last week why to hate economists. In the same week that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke declared the recession "very likely" over and less than a month after shrinking the state's general fund budget to three-year-old levels, he's now been told he must cut about $300 million right away - and instead of a $1 billion shortfall next year, it looks to be $2 billion. Forecasts, shmorecasts. Like a concrete block tossed in a pond, the ripple effect of high unemployment rates continues to spread long after the initial splash.

Juliana Schamp, who had evaluated mental health treatment facilities for the state, died in her sleep Monday at the Edenwald retirement community. The former Ten Hills resident was 86. Born Juliana Reese in Massillon, Ohio, she earned a bachelor's degree from Miami University of Ohio, where she met her future husband, Homer W. Schamp Jr., a physicist. She earned a master's degree from Ohio State University. They married in 1948 and lived in the Netherlands from 1952 until 1954, when her husband became director of the Institute of Molecular Physics at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Breast cancer survivors sought for support program The Center for Breast Care at Howard County General Hospital is offering a support program for women with breast cancer, matching volunteer breast cancer survivors with newly diagnosed women for insight and support through the time of the patient's treatment and recovery. Called "Survivors Offering Support," the program was introduced at Howard County General in 2006. The hospital is recruiting breast cancer survivors to serve as SOS mentors.

Recessions are the economy's way of improving our well-being and making us live longer, say various news outlets. "Can the bad economy be good for your health?" wonders CNN. "Happy days are here again! Research shows hard times can actually be good for you," says The Washington Times. If you're not feeling the joy and vitality of 8.9 percent unemployment, don't worry. Or don't worry any more than you already are about your job, mortgage and 401(k) plan. Four decades of research show that the conventional wisdom is correct.

Marcia C. Pines, a retired administrator in public health programs at the Johns Hopkins University who pioneered guidelines for human volunteers in clinical research and who advocated greater awareness of mental illness, died Sunday morning at Sinai Hospital of complications from lymphoma. She was 83. Mrs. Pines started her professional career as a research assistant at Johns Hopkins in 1966, in the epidemiology department in what was then known as the School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Even a $3.7 billion federal lifesaver isn't enough to solve all of Maryland's budget quandaries. While the state is now flush with federal dollars for education, Medicaid and infrastructure projects, other state functions, among them the prison system, mental health programs and juvenile justice, are facing significant cutbacks. In some cases, lawmakers and advocates have questioned how agencies will be able to function within constrained budgets. Meanwhile, the economy continues to deteriorate and state officials are bracing for more bad news later this month when the latest estimates of tax revenues are due. Analysts have warned that annual collections have fallen as much as $500 million below expectations for the current budget year and next.

Maryland officials plan to close Baltimore's only public psychiatric hospital, relocating some patients to state facilities in Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties while forcing outpatient alcohol and drug treatment programs housed there to find new homes. The plan, detailed in Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget for next year, calls for shuttering the 51-bed in- patient facility at the Walter P. Carter Center downtown. Outpatient mental health programs, which serve thousands throughout the city, will have to move elsewhere by July 2010, when officials plan to close the center.