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| Redmond (l-r) Councilmembers Hank Myers, Steve Fields, Tanika Padhye, my wife, supporting EvergreenHealth in a NAMI Walk. |
When voting on EvergreenHealth's 2019 Prop. 1 bond measure you may not be aware of a hidden gem in this bond. The hospital was thinking of building an outpatient mental health clinic if we passed the bond!
The need is definitely there. According to the National Institute of Mental Health:
- One in 25 have a serious mental health illness like bipolar, eating disorders, major depression and severe anxiety.
- Only 41% of adults in the U.S. with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year. Among adults with a serious mental illness, 62.9% received mental health services in the past year.
- Just over half (50.6%) of children with a mental health condition aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year
- Suicide is now the Number 2 killer of our teens.
So please know Prop. 1 is more than seismically retrofitting Evergreen's oldest buildings and upgrading the 1985 Critical Care Unit. It's also about "the forgotten people" -- our forgotten mentally challenged residents and their families crying for care.
Please vote "Yes" on Proposition 1.
-- Bob Yoder, November 2019
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