COVID-19 Mental Health and Addiction Services

Finance:The COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond: Improving Mental Health and Addiction Services in Our Communities, May 12, 2021

Mental health care and addiction services have actually stood up rather well during the pandemic. Zoom, and similar platforms, have stepped in nicely to continue face to face care where needed. Phone appointments and video calls have also worked in family practice settings where medication management is the only task. 

Managing m prescriptions and assisting my housemate in managing his contacts with his are much easier than a trip to our respective mental health providers.

Detox and rehabilitative services for alcohol and drug abuse are still active, although sometimes bringing in outside speakers is not possible if there are glitches in electronic media or in the event a facility is moving to a new location. This is the exception, not the rule.

In Montgomery County, housing of Drug Court clients has been moved from our Pre-Release Center to contracted half-way houses. The system has kept up with COVID.

Regular Twelve Step meetings are occurring remotely as well. Some new members have never been to an in-person meeting, although clubhouses and church basement meetings are now opening up and outdoor meetings (both masked and unmasked) have been occurring throughout the pandemic. 

Coronavirus and SARS2 infections occurred in the recovery community even when meetings were not held in person. People have mostly gotten sick in other places. Last year, older members got sick. This year, it is our younger members who suffer from the second wave. Older members have not been ill, having already recovered.

For many, including me, the virus spreads by being sneezed on in private during the first phase of the illness, which occurs before the asymptotic phase and the more serious symptoms).  

The first phase is largely attributed to seasonal allergies or bad colds. People die in the more serious phase because they expect it to go away as the first did. The CDC has either not detected this pattern or has not informed the nation of it, for whatever reason. This is more of a factor in causing death than masking ever was.

While I might have been infected at a public event last February, it is as or more likely that infection occurred as I was typing Comments for the Record at the local library or by having coffee or a meal or seeing a movie during that period. I infected others during the first period. During the later part of the asymptotic period, no one I breathed on took ill.

There is one area of major concern that must be addressed, although I am not sure how we can go about it.  During this crisis, before there was vaccine hesitancy, there was Zoom hesitancy. Some of our older members simply could not figure out or declined to use video calls to attend meetings. 

I experienced this reticence myself, not wanting to download software to my phone that was unknown to me. In the beginning, I was also too ill to do much more than eat, be tired from eating, rest and then go back to bed. It was only the usual miracles experienced by those who are spiritually awake that had me download the software and attend a midnight meeting.

My housemate is not technically savvy. Without my help, and the use of my Chromebook, he would still be visiting his psychiatrist in person, where he would be taken into a room for a teleconference with his doctor. 

He is a victim of the digital divide. It inhibits him (as well as the lack of a computer of his own) to seek English as a Second Language courses, which are free at Montgomery College (our local community college). His disability, which is matched by his lack of education and equipment hamper both his treatment and his ability to improve his skills. 

This is where improvement is necessary. As I have stated in previous comments for the record, paying a stipend to undertake both computer and basic literacy training is an essential incentive to seek it. Such stipends should not count against his disability payments. If they did, they would be a disincentive toward learning. It is a conservative meme that poverty leads to self-improvement. Research has shown that the opposite is the case. It certainly is for him.

And yes, better broadband in some areas of the country would be helpful, although this would not solve the problem of digital illiteracy, especially among vulnerable populations. Most people have access to the Internet through their cable companies, although those that do not should be given free access paid for by higher cable fees.