Amid the uproar over Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close dozens of elementary schools, we shouldn’t forget that it’s been almost a year since the mayor closed six of the city’s 12 mental health clinics.
If I were a betting man, I’d say the odds are against them. The harsh fact remains that the clinics serve a particularly vulnerable constituency that doesn’t typically have access to the mayor: poor people with mental health issues.
In many ways the debate over the clinics mirrors the one raging over school closings. The mayor says patient visits to clinics have been falling steadily over the last few years, in part because the population in neighborhoods like Woodlawn has been dropping. He says we can actually do more with less if we’re just more efficient.
Still, while the shuttered clinics served everyone, some of the private firms only take insured patients—though most patients from the closed clinics have no insurance, which is why they went to the city’s neighborhood mental health clinics in the first place.
“If you’re seeing 100 patients, you’re basically seeing someone once a month,” says Allan Scholom, a psychologist with a private practice. “It’s like the old joke: ‘Doctor, my mother’s indifferent to me.’ And the doctor says, ‘Oh, I feel bad for you. See you next month.’ It’s ridiculous.”
You know, I have to admit that the whole Olympics thing came in handy, if only as a crowbar to wedge concessions from the mayor.
