Absorb the cost
To the editor:
A $35 million budget for hospital expansion CAN absorb the costs of an in-patient mental health care facility. Mental health care and profit are not connected and never will be because a large percentage of the mentally ill either are underinsured or not insured. Shuttling a mentally ill patient on to another community continues to reinforce the stigma associated with being mentally ill.
Those individuals that suffer from mental illness live in everyone’s neighborhood and deserve the same level of care a heart patient or cancer patient receive. Community care, community pride. That applies to everyone, including those with no insurance card.
Rose Foster,
Lawrence