Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, this is the last of my amendments on this. Although this House overwhelmingly passed the authorization for these, as did the Senate, money was not allocated towards it. While I understand there is a priority to treat substance abuse, but even with that, many times there is nowhere for someone to go. Back in the 1950s, we had over half a million psychiatric hospital beds in this country. I think at the time the population of the United State was 150 million. Now, with a population close to 317 million to 318 million, we have about 40,000 hospital beds and a shortage of 100,000. The only State that actually has an adequate number of beds is Mississippi. All the rest are at a critical shortage. So what happens when a person has a drug overdose and needs to get into treatment? What happens when a person has a psychiatric breakdown? Well, generally what happens is the police arrive, not the paramedics. They arrest the person. Many States actually say: Let's put these people in a jail cell, because there is no bed. Or, if they take them to the hospital, the hospital says: Let's just give them some medication to stabilize them and let them back out because we can't hold them. We have no place for them to go. {time} 2130 What happens, many times these people are boarded, that is, they remain in an emergency room bed, which is no place for someone with a psychiatric crisis.…”