Mental Health The Topic At Eggs And Issues

A panel of mental health providers spoke about mental health in Mahaska County and the State of Iowa during Eggs and Issues on Saturday.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Eggs and Issues has been a staple of Oskaloosa Politics for decades now, and this Saturday morning, mental health in Iowa took center stage.

Answering those questions for the community was hosted by Oskaloosa Mayor Dave Krutzfeldt, with an expert panel of Lance Roorda, Heather Gross, Jane Busch, and members of Southern Iowa Mental Health.

Mental health and the services available to those needing help has come under the magnifying lens as the state government and local governments have struggled to find a balance between the need and cost to provide those services.

It’s suggested by those on the panel that reimbursement rates are low and that salaries for mental health providers are low, making it difficult to recruit others into the profession. It could be that there is an overabundance of providers in some areas, where they compete for patients, or a lack of providers in areas like Oskaloosa.

One of the suggestions provided by the panel was to let the local communities decide the funding sustainiability for those services and asked that legislators step away on decisions on helping to fund those services.

One program that Southern Iowa Mental Health is providing is a jail diversion program, where Heather Gross, along with a mental health provider, works with the individual that is incarcerated.

The hope is to help stabilize those individuals while they are in jail, helping them to be more successful once they are released from jail, and to help them, once released, from going back to jail.

It’s believed that mental illness isn’t such a stigma anymore and that people can more openly talk about their disease. Social media is an avenue that provides many benefits, but also allows individuals to be bullied 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The complex world that many individuals live in makes it harder for them to figure out where they fit in.

Providers are trying to do more with less, and some patients need more services, over a longer length of time with more attention.

That need to help those in our community is the reason the ongoing debate about the money needed to help provide those services to the community continues.

The next scheduled Eggs and Issues will be February 8th, 2020, and will feature representatives Holly Brink and Dustin Hite, along with Senator Ken Rozenboom.

The event starts at 8:30 am inside Smokey Row Coffee on the square in Oskaloosa, Iowa.