Psychiatric patients

detained in the ER | KevinMD.com

How did I get to this page? Well, it was a really odd combination of thoughts. One, I saw the words South Carolina with a description of the beauty of the state; much as Nance described it. Two, I saw the words Shrimp and grits. Heavenly! It's certainly one of my favorite dishes and unavailable in my part of the world. We had a great shrimp and grits dinner about 12 years ago. We were in Charlotte NC one night during a business trip and I think that was the last one we had...sigh! Third, I read about the fact that South Carolina has no money for mental health. And wished I could tell the good doctor that wrote this piece, that South Carolina is not alone in their neglect of mental patients. California lead the way back when ronnie reagan was our governor and closed all of the state mental hospitals. Since the sky didn't fall when he did that, every politician in the nation took that as a signal that they could safely eliminate mental health from budgets. Now, thanks to ronnie, every state in this nation is in denial. Mental illness does not exist. So there!