Law enforcement officers in southeast Iowa say they are spending more time responding to calls for help related to mental health issues.
They, in turn, are calling for more resources.
Police from Keokuk, Burlington and Mt. Pleasant, as well as Sheriff’s Department officials from Lee and Henry counties met with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) at the Lee County Sheriff’s Department in Montrose to discuss this and other concerns facing local law enforcement.
Lee County Sheriff Stacy Weber said dispatches for help with mental health-related incidents in the form of shootings, assault, and “people treating other people horribly” have almost tripled in his time in law enforcement.
“When I started in law enforcement back in ’95, we dealt with mental health issues, oh, I'd say 20% of the time,” Weber said. “I'd say 70% of the time today it's mental health issues.”
Weber said this is due to services having been cut in recent years.
“It used to be you had some services,” he said. “I shouldn't say ‘lots,’ but there were some, and there's not much now.”
Weber said funding for resources to address mental health issues have been scaled back within the last few years.
He also said that when the hospital in Keokuk closed last fall, about half of Lee County’s healthcare services went with it. He said the hospital had provided mental health services at one point.
“50% of all of our medical care just went away when the hospital in Keokuk closed its doors,” he said.
“I'm not saying that it was functioning (with mental health services) for the last several years, but when it was up and functioning, it was a full-service hospital.”
Weber said now the full healthcare burden in the county has fallen on Great River Health in Ft. Madison.
“So now, the Ft. Madison hospital, they're not ready to take on every baby being born in our community. They're not ready to take on every mentally ill person. They're not ready for all the car accidents. They get overwhelmed so fast, and I get it. It's about money that they can't afford to pay,” he said.
Grassley said services through online physician consultation and counseling service Telehealth have emerged within the past three years to help address mental health service in the region.
The senator said the federal government allocates funding for mental health services, but each state is responsible for making sure those services are provided.
“At the federal level we have dollars that go into mental health, but we don't have a national health system,” Grassley said. “We have 50 different systems, and I suppose you could say they're running 50 different ways.”
Grassley said funding for county and regional mental health services had previously been afforded by Iowa state property taxes, but that has funded by the federal treasury during the past four years.
“I think Gov. Reynolds, and before her Gov. Branstad, and then the state legislature, has made significant steps. But they're when I say they're significant steps, they're trying to help out, but still have a major problem,” Grassley said.
The senator said he supports screening children for mental health issues before they enroll in school to help those who need assistance in the form of counseling. He said he is not sure if hiring more social workers to address the increased calls for mental health is the answer.
“There's not a simple answer to the more social workers or stuff like that,” he said. “But I think that it comes back to law enforcement, and they aren't backed up enough by the services that are needed.”
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