Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
NYC Launches $2M Ad Campaign To Trigger Talk About Mental Health Issues
New York City has launched a $2 million advertising campaign meant to get people thinking and talking about mental health problems. City first lady Chirlane McCray unveiled the television, print, online and subway and bus ads Monday. They feature people talking about their experiences with bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and addiction. (4/11)
Gov. Pat McCrory says he'd like to see more taxpayer spending on mental health, the elderly and children. McCrory on Monday talked about some of his priorities for the budget North Carolina lawmakers hammer out this summer. (4/11)
A federal judge [in Washington state] ordered the partial shutdown of a new treatment facility for mentally ill defendants in Yakima after learning that the renovated jail poses a safety risk. Lawyers for the defendants had sought a restraining order to stop the Department of Social and Health Services from sending mentally ill defendants to the Yakima Residential Treatment Facility to have their competency restored. They argued that a former jail was not an appropriate setting for treating the mentally ill, and said the facility hadn't been properly renovated to ensure that patients would not harm themselves or others. (Bellisle, 4/11)
Finding an available inpatient psychiatric bed in the state of California can be extremely difficult. Many patients with acute psychiatric conditions spend days deteriorating in hospital emergency departments while they wait. But how exactly to solve the problem has become a controversy in Sacramento. An Assembly bill backed by the California Psychiatric Association and the Steinberg Institute, a mental health policy organization, seeks to improve the process by establishing an online registry to collect and display information to help medical providers find psychiatric beds. (Gold, 4/12)