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There are patients in the state hospital who simply would not survive outside the facilities, most of them!    Consider the man with schizophrenia who hears incessant voices telling him he's no good and to redeem himself he must do all manner of harm to others.  He cries, shrieks and bangs his head against the wall in his attempts to make the voices go away.  Consider the many who, as a result of this terrible disease, simply cannot take care of themselves.  Are we going to send them away and presume others will care for them, or, more cruelly presume they can care for themselves when extremis becomes their reality?  Community health centers are a great idea until the need for budget cuts obscures their services to humanity.  Community health centers are a cop-out!  We should not now unfund the Junction City Hospital.  Let's accept the fact that there are unfortunate persons who need the in-patient services. It will always be so and the numbers are growing proportionately with the population.  To believe that mentall illness can be cured with drugs is folly. Drugs  most often just dull the symptoms and in the process of doing so they undermine a person's health.  Many antipsychotics alter the body's cellular efficiency and usher-in diabetes and other maladies. Therefore, drugs do not obviate the need for inpatient care.

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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