Deeds Family Tragedy - Virginia's Broken Mental Health Care System

Creigh Deeds and son Gus in happier times

The Virginia - and national - news media is awash with coverage of the horrific events that occurred this morning which have left Virginia State Senator Creigh Deeds in fair condition after multiple stab wounds and his 24 year old son dead by apparent suicide.  As a parent myself, I cannot imagine the anguish that the entire Deeds family is experiencing at present.  The Daily Progress looks at the day's tragic events and provide this summary:

The horror unfolded at a secluded farmhouse at the end of a long gravel driveway in rural Bath County.

Repeatedly stabbed by his son in the head and torso, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, 55, made his way to a road, where his cousin picked him up, police said. His son Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, killed himself with a gunshot, police said.

The senator was transported to the University of Virginia Medical Center, where he was listed in fair condition Tuesday night.

Thirteen hours before the 911 call came in at 7:25 a.m. reporting an altercation at Deeds’ home tucked deep in the woods of Millboro Springs, Gus Deeds was released from Bath Community Hospital following a mental health evaluation. An effort to find a hospital where he could undergo further evaluation failed, said Dennis A. Cropper, executive director of Rockbridge Area Community Services.   State police are investigating the case as an attempted murder-suicide.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch learned that an emergency custody order had been issued for Deeds' son, Austin Creigh “Gus” Deeds, 24, on Monday, which allowed mental health officials to hold him for up to four hours to determine if he should be held under a temporary detention order. That order would have allowed him to be held for up to 72 hours.

Yes, this sad story is a horrible personal tragedy for the Deeds family and their friends.  But sadly, it is symptomatic of a larger tragedy: Virginia's utterly pathetic mental health system.  Had the Virginia General Assembly - controlled by the Virginia GOP - deemed mental health care even a minor priority, Gus Deeds might have been able to have been placed in a mental health unit of observation/treatment and the entire night mare avoided.  Unfortunately, the Virginia GOP (and its puppet masters among the Christofascists/Tea Party) deems the poor and the sick and the mentally troubled to be little better than disposable garbage to be thrown aside.  Funding for mental heath care has been slashed.  It's the same mindset that motivates the Virginia GOP's drive to block Medicaid expansion in Virginia.  A piece from two months ago in the Virginian Pilot looked at just how poor the mental health care system is in Virginia.  Here are excerpts:

Our country is once again in mourning over a devastating mass shooting, this time at the Navy Yard in Washington. As the founder and president of The Chas Foundation, a new nonprofit dedicated to help the mentally ill find appropriate treatment and immediate resources, I plead with my fellow citizens to consider the mental state of the young man who committed this atrocity.

His symptoms prior to the shooting - hearing threatening voices - clearly indicate he was disturbed. According to E. Fuller Torrey, one of our nation's top psychiatrists and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center, he was most likely a paranoid schizophrenic.  Yet, even though this young man sought help for his mental condition, he received none, . . .

Virginia's mental health system is tragically broken, shattered into hundreds of unmanageable pieces.  This poor system results in many mentally ill persons needlessly losing their lives, or ending up in jails, or homeless, or in the care of families who do not know where to turn for resources.

Sadly, in a 2006 report, Virginia was given a "D" ranking for its mental health system by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

NAMI Virginia, the state chapter, reports that after the 2007 tragedy at Virginia Tech, when $42 million in new funding was allocated to the mental health system, the General Assembly took away $37.7 million of that funding within a two-year period.

Statewide, in the last decade, the number of inpatient hospital beds for the mentally ill has declined while the population has increased by 13 percent. According to NAMI Virginia, there are currently 1,136,000 Virginians with severe mental illness and 330,000 each year need urgent treatment.

Chas, my middle son, spent 10 years seeking treatment and diagnosis from various mental health professionals. He was prescribed lithium but, despite taking his medications, he became more paranoid and psychotic. In the fall of 2011, at age 34, he suffered a nervous breakdown.

His wife and I went with him to the emergency room at Senatara Norfolk General Hospital for voluntary commitment. We spent 32 hours before a psychiatric bed was found on the 8th floor.

Chas, who had private insurance, stayed at the hospital for three weeks and was released before his medication proved effective - while he was still psychotic. He attempted suicide. This time, we went to the emergency room at DePaul Hospital. After 12 hours, the staff at DePaul sent him to Virginia Beach Psychiatric Hospital.

He stayed at Virginia Beach Psych for two weeks. The staff worked very hard to find a long-term bed for him at Eastern State. There were no beds, so he was released.

He had gone through the revolving door of mental health services for the last time. On Nov. 14, 2011, he hanged himself in the home he shared with his young wife. His father found him.
[I]f mentally ill people are not on medication, they can be an extreme risk to themselves, like Chas, or to others, like Seung-Hui Cho, who committed the horrific crimes at Virginia Tech.

Unless there are more state and federal funds for hospital beds, long-term treatment and community programs and resources, I fear that Virginia's ranking as 39th in the country for mental health services will worsen.

Not to make light of the personal tragedies of the members of the Deeds family, but Gus Deeds' apparent mental health problems and inability to secure proper treatment/hospitalization are not unique in Virginia.  If the Virginia GOP put any sort of premium on mental health care  - or health care in general - instead of looking for ways to cut taxes and slash the social safety net, Gus Deeds and many others might be alive as I write this post.   As I have noted many times, I find it most damning that the political party that feigns fealty to Christian values is the party that  makes the Biblical Pharisees look like upstanding and compassionate people.  My thoughts are with the Deeds family and other families who have experienced horrors and loss because of the misplaced priorities of our legislators, especially the members of the Republican Party.