Withholding mental health care is unlawful

As a National Alliance on Mental Illness volunteer, I contacted The Gazette for Becky Elson-Ehlts, sister of Keith Elson Jr. Keith spent three weeks being denied psychiatric medication at the Linn County Correctional Facility. He was on the list of inmates awaiting medications.

Why is this wrong? Because it's against the law. In Ruiz vs. Estelle (1980), the court ruled “access to needed mental health services by inmates is protected under the Eighth Amendment.” A civil rights complaint was filed with the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

After a similar complaint in 1998, the Department of Justice threatened to sue Iowa's Black Hawk County Jail until it provided mental health care, including medications.

Our community's inadequate mental health services are turning our jails into mental health institutes. For every psychiatric hospital bed, there are 3.2 mentally ill inmates. Why should you care? Because most of these inmates will be released.

The majority of the money from our misnamed mental health budget goes to mandated services for people with mental retardation. No such mandate exists for people with mental illness until we put them in our jails. Once in jail, a mandate now exists: to provide inmates with mental health care.

Judy Meyers

President

NAMI Black Hawk County

Cedar Falls