BLOG: You have the right to remain silent...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
They MUST Blame Someone
It only took a few hours for the news media to start attacking the Virginia Tech administration for the delay in warning people about the shooter. My years working for FEMA (back when FEMA worked) taught me that people absolutely must have someone to blame, even for “acts of God” or serious lapses in personal responsibility.I submit that blaming the administration for the delay is a rabbit trail. To find blame, look in the mirror.
Too many of us deny the reality of mental illness. We treat it as a character flaw, a lack of self control. When mental illness is recognized, finding treatment is a monumental challenge. Health insurance companies say that mandating parity in mental health and physical health coverage prices people out of insurance. "Taxpayers" won't "waste" money on Medicaid, so doctors can't afford to take on Medicaid patients. Hospitals resent mentally ill individuals who show up in their ERs. Well, how much money do you think mental illness costs? Lost work produtivity. Family violence. Police time. Jails. Courts. Prisons. We pay for mental illness, one way or another. Why not pay before it causes so much havoc?
This is my personal crusade: putting mental illness into the “mother’s handbook.” We know how to recognize and treat chicken pox, dislocated soccer toes and migraine headaches. Why don’t we include mental illness in our handbook? I remember when it just wasn’t done to admit there was cancer in the family. That’s where we are with mental illness now.
Mental illness is painful—just as painful as a broken leg or laceration. Would we deny the existence of those maladies? No! Why not? Just because we can see it and we “know” about it?
Until we as a society diagnose, fund and treat mental illness, tragedies such as the Virginia Tech massacre will continue to happen. The first rule of crisis management: The best crisis management is crisis avoidance!
Labels: crisis_management, mental_illness, Virginia_Tech
Comments:
Without adequate healthcare for the masses, seems to me handgun control should be an emphasis.
But then, The NRA lobby is as active as big insurance and pharmaceutical companies with this crowd we have running things...
I'm wondering, too, if having such strict 'confidentiality' rules doesn't "hide" a potentially dangerous person, like this guy? It appears the university had sent him to a mental care institution in Dec. 2005 and then allowed him to return to campus, with no follow up.
I don't mean to blame the university. Blame easy access to guns, blame the university for the two hour gap in warning others, blame what you want, it doesn't change the horrible outcome and it's not clear at all that any single step could have stopped him.
I attended the graduation for the Political Science Department of VT--my niece was graduating. The first diplomas they handed out were to the parents of the 9 poli-sci students that were killed. It put a very solemn tone on the rest of the graduation - was that the right thing to do or should they have separated that ceremony from the other? They chose to include them, which, I am sure was criticized as well. Humans make choices every day - our perspectives are varied, and we will never all agree. Understanding someone's perspective requires diligence and an open mind and heart - not as easy thing these days.