Following up on Friday’s strong statement from Mental Health America, National NAMI has put out a very strong statement as well in regard to President’s Trump’s comments about individuals with issues of mental illness.
Action Alert
NAMI’s Statement Regarding President Trump’s Comments on Re-institutionalizing People with Mental Illness
On August 15th, President Trump revisited his statements about reopening mental “institutions” and perpetuated false stereotypes. Two weeks ago, the president also called people with mental illness “monsters.”
In response, National Alliance on Mental Illness Acting CEO Angela Kimball released the following statement:
“The president should be talking about better care and earlier access to intensive treatment, not revisiting the shameful institutions of our past.
“Words matter, Mr. President. ‘These people’ are our friends, neighbors, children, spouses. They’re not ‘monsters,’ ‘the mentally ill’ or ‘crazy people’ – they’re us. Talking about re-institutionalization only further marginalizes and isolates the one in five people with mental illness. Instead, we need to be talking about the power of early treatment and effective intervention to change lives.”
Today, too often, people languish in emergency rooms and law enforcement officers are responding to avoidable crises because community-based mental health services aren’t there for people who need them.
Instead of focusing on the past, we urge the administration to focus on improving access to mental health care. There are commonsense approaches that we know are effective and that can be implemented now to improve access to mental health services. We must:
NAMI welcomes the opportunity to meet with President Trump and work with his administration on steps for improving mental health services in America.
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