Please support my mission of helping families who suffer from PTSD and moral injury…order my book, Reconciliation: A Son’s Story. Click and order paperback or download Kindle version. Buy my book at Barnes & Noble as well… Thank you! Steve Sparks, Author
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| Gus Deeds took a semester off from college at William & Mary to work on his dad’s campaign for governor in 2009. He reportedly assaulted his father Tuesday morning and then shot himself dead. |
A shortage of psychiatric beds can be lethal… Quote from this website article & video clip…click.
“Rare or not, it’s an issue Virginia has struggled with before. In 2011, Virginia inspector general G. Douglas Bevelacqua released a report chastising the state for turning away in a month an estimated 200 patients determined to be a threat to themselves or others who met the criteria for a temporary detention, only because state facilities lacked the room to hold them. Twenty-three of Virginia’s 40 community-services boards acknowledged that “streeting” occurred at their facilities.”
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In light of my post yesterday, “When all hope is lost,” sharing this story of the stabbing of Virginia State Senator, Creigh Deeds, by his son, who then took his own life, shows that we must do more to help mental health patients. If you can’t see an open wound or recognize the immediate need for life threatening urgent care, hospitals often take a risk and turn away a mentally ill person who threatens himself and others… In the case of Creigh Deeds’ son, Gus, this is exactly what happened. What can we do differently? I wish we could find the right answer… Is mental health care in America “luck of the draw?”
Steve Sparks
Author
Reconciliation: A Son’s Story click to order…
