WATCH: Town hall addressing mental health services in Northern Michigan
This is an UPN North Live, your voice, your future town hall. Tackling mental health concerns across our area. Recent incidents have sparked debates on mental health and the available resources. Our UPN North Live mental health town hall starts now. Well, good evening and welcome. Michigan is facing a shortage when it comes to mental health care resources, leading to individuals seeking care in emergency rooms, traveling long distances, or or facing repeated interactions with law enforcement, and also in some cases simply not getting the mental health care they need to be well. This shortage is not just a health care issue, but also impacts public safety, human rights, and the economy. For tonight’s Your Voice, Your Future town hall, we’ve assembled a panel of guests who know well the challenges of our mental health care system faces to help shed some light on the situation. Yeah. And before they introduce themselves, we we want to encourage you to share your thoughts and comments and experiences with us as well. We’ll address as many as we can tonight. We also want to take a moment a and thank our panelists for being here. They are all working to be part of the solution and we appreciate their time and their insight. All right, let’s go ahead and meet our panelists now. They are all here now on your screen. Um, please introduce yourselves, tell us your role, and briefly, why are you here with us tonight? We’re going to go ahead and start with Dr. San Angelo. Hi, thanks so much. I’m Dr. Joe Santangelo. I’m the chief medical officer for Mson Healthcare, and I’m here to help to represent um the both the doctor’s voice and also the role of Mudson Healthcare in the mental health arena. Thank you, doctor. Let’s go to Shane maybe. Yeah. Let’s go to Shane Gilly. Oh, Shane, you’re muted. Oh, there you go. There we go. We got We got you. Thank you. Um I’m Shane Gilly. I’m the brother of Brad. Uh we’ve dealt with Brad’s situation for 28 years now. I’m here to share my struggles. And it’s not just me behind um what I have to say. I’ve I’ve been bombarded with a slew of messages from people that are in the same particular situation and have their struggles as well. So, I’m kind of representing them to the best of my ability um with what I’ve got to say tonight. Thank you, Shane. All right, let’s go now to Laura Glenn. Good evening. Hi, Laura Glenn. I’m the chief operating officer for Mson Healthcare. Um, and I’ve had the opportunity to be part of um, leading some of our behavioral health expansion work uh, with other community partners. And so um, I’m excited to share uh, tonight many of the um, efforts we have ongoing to uh, continually expand access. All right, let’s go to Senator John Deoose. Hi, I’m Senator John Deoose. I represent the 37th district in the Michigan State Senate which runs from Leelana and Grand Traverse County all the way up to Sue St. Marie and I’m here because literally everywhere I go in our district for the past 5 years, I hear about two problems that we need to address. Housing and mental health. And I think we’ve seen this play out on our our news channels recently. And I don’t know, I’m not an expert in this area, but I want to help and be part of the solution. Senator, we appreciate you being here and and being listening at least. And I know you’re going to provide some insight for us a little bit later. All right. And now Tony. My name is Tony Steamfield. I’m the co-founder before, during, and after incarceration. And uh the reason I’m here is because uh uh I have I had a son uh diagnosed with bipolar who in his 15 years journey with mental illness. He was uh hospitalized nine times with the total days in hospitals 40 days and five times incarcerated with 480 days in jail. the only uh place where he could uh be stabilized was in jail where sometimes he would be for 30 days. Um I’m a psychologist so I do know about mental illness. Uh and uh my son died six years ago by suicide and uh he could not be saved. I’m sorry Tony. I’m sorry about that. Uh again like to take this opportunity to thank our our panelists for being here today and I want to start with a with a question for for Mson. Mson is where we go to get our healthcare and mental health care is healthcare. So I’m sure there are some people that are saying why doesn’t MSON just have more health care? It’s not that simple. where in the process uh of of addressing this shortage is Mson and and and what is being expanded right now? Yeah, thanks Mark and maybe if it’s okay I’ll start and then I’ll hand off to Laura Glenn. So it might be helpful to think a little bit for folks to understand the continuum of mental health care. So just like many other um health care illnesses, people who have uh mental health care needs need a lot of different kinds of care. So that ranges all the way from being cared for by a primary care doctor or seeking therapy um whether that’s in person or virtual therapy that people get and then it might be interacting with other me other mental health care professionals as well. Um and then a much smaller number of people who need u mental health care need an inpatient stay so need to be hospitalized for their mental illness. That’s a small number of the people who deal with um with mental health conditions. Um, and then there’s an even smaller number of those folks who need very long-term hospitalization uh because they’re not able to be stabilized in a relatively short manner. So, when we think about somebody who has cancer or high blood pressure or renal issue, kidney issues or lung issues, we might think about somebody who for some things might go to their primary care doctor. They might see a specialist for other things and when things get bad, they might be in the hospital. One, when we think about mental illness, we think about it the same way that many conditions are cared for by primary care doctors. Maybe you need specialists like psychologists and psychiatrists and then in a smaller number um of cases, you need to be in the hospital. And so when we talk about uh caring for people with mental illness, we sort of have to think about all those different parts. It’s it’s a complicated uh system. So Laura, I’ll hand off to you to see if you if you could talk a little bit about Mson’s role in each of those parts. All right. Thank you, Dr. Santangelo. Um, so kind of building on this concept of a continuum of care, um, we’ve really been focused on trying to address that gaps that we’ve had in our continuum. Um, we know that, um, accessing outpatient behavioral health care has been a challenge. Um we also know um and I think Mark you mentioned it in your introduction um that patients have ended up in our emergency rooms um seeking mental health care which is not the ideal environment for that care to be delivered. Um so one way in which we’re trying to address that gap in the continuum um is through the Grand Traverse Mental Health Crisis and Access Center. Um that is a new facility that opened in January and in July uh we expanded that uh facility to 247 access so it is open around the clock 7 days a week. We also have added a psychiatric urgent care um so individuals who have an urgent need um for mental health services can go to the crisis and access center and it’s a much more soothing environment uh much more appropriate than um our emergency department. And so really the goal of the crisis and access center um is to allow access to patients when they need it um to address uh crisis situations before they escalate to the level of needing that highlevel kind of inpatient uh or hospital care that Dr. Santangelo referenced. Um so we have been on a journey in partnership with Northern Lakes Community Mental Health um supported by Grand Traverse County um actually with both federal and state funds um to support the development of the crisis center. Um and our next phases so there are more phases under development um in the crisis center are to add what are called crisis residential beds. Um, so think of crisis residential beds as just kind of one step uh below um an inpatient or a a hospital bed. Um, and we’ll be able to care for individuals um for you know roughly a week um who need um that level of care but yet don’t um aren’t quite sick enough uh to be in the hospital. So we think that that will add um capacity within our region um and uh it will reduce the need or the demand for more of those impatient level beds. Um so those crisis residential units will come on in in stages. Um so we are developing um a nine bed crisis residential unit for adults and a six bed crisis residential unit for uh children. So we will be able to serve um both children and adults. Um and again these are new services in the community um really focused on addressing that gap um in the continuum. And I think you know we are in agreement um that there are uh continued needs. The crisis center alone won’t meet all of the needs but it will be a big step forward and kind of filling in and ensuring that our community has access to that full continuum of care. Lord thank you. Uh I think in just your two answers there, we can see how many layers there are uh that that need to be addressed. And I imagine that by having these resources available, not only is it probably more suitable or appropriate care for those patients, but it also removes the burden from your emergency rooms and from uh other systems that may already uh uh be kind of stressed. Lori, you you said something there that I’m sure that anybody who who has has read much or or listened much about uh psychiatric beds in Michigan. Mson’s planning on adding did you say six beds for adolescence in in our area. So, we are um adding what are called crisis residential beds. So, they’re just kind of one step below um an inpatient or a hospital kind of level of care, but six beds for kids. Um, and there are no impatient beds for children in Northern Michigan. Um, so this will help address that gap. Um, and then we’re adding nine beds for adults. And again, the goal is to be able to treat uh individuals at that level, so they don’t need to be hospitalized for care. That is uh that that six number does may not seem like much, but that is s if you talk to parents that have to t you know figure out how to get to to Kalamazoo or Detroit take time off work for their kids and we would all do anything for our kids, right? But that that that to me is a an impressive and significant number to add here for those families, right? Yes, agreed. I’m a pediatrician by training and I practiced for 20 years, much of that here in Northern Michigan and um it is really hard to send patients far away and that obviously goes for adults too. It’s really hard to send family members and friends and kids downstate for hospitalization and so um this is a really a step that we think is really important for patients who may be able to get their care closer to home and get back to home sooner. That that that’s nice to hear. Tony, I have a question for you. Uh this is a problem that uh Mson has done a a a great deal of work recently to address. Uh but this is not this is not a new problem. You talk to lawmakers, people in the health care community, they have been talking about this need for this for a long time, right Tony? This is not it’s it’s great to see action being taken, but this is not a new phenomena, right? I’ve been part of that process uh in terms of uh um bringing the the mental health crisis to town. However, does not treat the population that we are concerned with today like we’re talking about Mr. Gil or Shane’s brother or for example my son. uh even today for example anybody who presents with combative and aggressive behavior cannot be taken care of in the crisis center the police officer don’t even think about taking that person there and in the ER even the ER does not meet that need because uh they cannot deal with that level of illness and uh volatility. So we do need uh that is why law enforcement is uh in as to intervene because uh even security at Mson is not allowed to touch a person like the security people don’t have guns don’t they cannot handle uh a person only a police officer can so the emergency room at Monson also has difficult time dealing with uh those individuals who are combative who are aggressive, who are very very sick, who are psychotic, and who may be thinking that they are being attacked. I do believe that Mr. Gil when uh he he probably thought he was being victimized at the time. So it is a safety concern that we do not have psychiatric beds, state psychiatric beds where these individuals can be taken care of because right now jail is the only place where they can be taken care of. 40% of individuals in jail and right now the jail population is 180 which they’re build 460. So they have to send individuals in other jails all around Michigan. Mhm. So that is the problem. What are we going to do about those individuals who are psychotic, who are combative, who do not understand their need for treatment? That’s called that’s a diagnosis. Uh that’s a symptom called anosagnosia. that is they do not understand that they’re sick and they do not engage in treatment voluntarily. So we do need teams understanding how to apply it like AOT uh which is assisted out outpatient treatment. We need to be the whole community needs to be better prepared and educated on that and we do need psychiatric beds. not psychiatric beds like uh you know we have in uh D6 and Mson. We need psychiatric beds where uh people maybe can be uh put in restraints or uh whatever different kind forensic for example uh beds. In some states like California, what they have done is that they expand jails and then they put a mental health unit in the jail where uh people the staff is paid by the state but the the jail is offered by the county because right now basically what the state is saying is uh that’s county responsibility to take care of these individuals and the county does not have the resources and correction officers do not have the training to deal with this population. Thank you, Tony. Um Shane, I want to bring you into the conversation now. We brought up your brother Bradford a little bit with this and you and I, we spoke a couple weeks ago just about your family’s journey to find placement for your brother. It was it’s been almost three decades of trying to do that. Can you speak about that experience a little bit? Is it similar to kind of what Tony is describing? Thank you, Tony. I’m sorry to hear about your situation. Um, that is another one that mirrors ours as well. I’m sorry about your loss. Um, I understand your frustration and also the points that you made about the judicial system and the housing on a state level is absolutely correct. This is what we’ve dealt with through this whole duration um with is within regards to MSON healthc care. Um please forgive my lack of knowledge in this situation as this event with Brad. We were more active in the younger years as we were trying to find help and uh several years have gone by as he’s been an adult kind of an adult foster care. It doesn’t really fall into the particulars of Mson Healthcare. Um I’m not sure uh we have um a different health care system up here. How far does Mson reach in the state? Where are they generally located? Shane, I’ll I’ll jump in. So um thanks for your question and and I’ll reiterate um uh sentiments to both you uh and to Tony. So, um, Mson starts at about the knuckles. We start at about 10 and serve all the way up to the bridge, although we certainly take care of patients from the eastern half of the UP as well. But we kind of consider everywhere north of US 10 to be our service area. And um, so that’s our our general service area and we provide outpatient services through pretty much that whole that whole region. Does that answer your question? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Um, and this is this is kind of the fascinating thing is where my understanding of our government, state government, the main priority is to keep their citizens safe. And when we have situations like Brad, you know, this just kind of scratches the surface of what’s kind of going on in our communities and so forth. Um, where in dealing with this for 28 years, I have a grand vision. I have an a great idea and I think more think tanks should be brought up like this one right here. This is a great step in the right direction to make some real change. But when it comes to the government being responsible for the safety of their citizens, I really believe that like Tonyy’s saying, um kind of the we need to kind of rethink the way that we’re doing things. Um, everybody has rights and when it comes to taking somebody and putting them in placement, this is something that’s going to have to change on a legislative level. Now, with Brad’s situation, it’s it’s not a matter of just grabbing somebody and putting them in placement. This is this is years of reports coming in. This is years of cries for help. this is a long duration of asking for some kind of placement, some kind of help um to deal with this situation. Even if it was, you know, somebody um an outreach program to come in and and discuss with a family, hey, um your son or your family member has been diagnosed with something severe like schizophrenia. These are some things that you need to keep in mind when dealing with this kind of situation. We know we’re the state or we’re with Mson healthcare for that matter, you know, um an education to the family to know how to go about dealing with such a thing too because we were canaries in the coal mine as far as how do we approach this? How do we discuss things with somebody with this kind of illness? Um, this is what’s kind of played havoc with our family and and wrecked our brains because we don’t even know we didn’t at the time know how to even communicate with them. You know, when you have somebody that’s kind of lost out there and running up and down the street with a briefcase and they’re just spooked out kind of wideeyed and and not knowing where reality is at. It’s like, how do you deal with this? and the police just say, “Well, they haven’t broken a law yet, so we can’t do anything with them.” Um, I’d like to get into it later, but I’d like to kind of keep moving forward. Um, I do have a great idea and it’s it kind of touches on what Tony mentioned, but it would have to be between on the legislative level of doing something where it comes to oh, say something like red flag laws, which I’m not really in favor with because it has a tendency of being abused, but something along those lines of changing how rights are changed. And I hate to go down this road, but when somebody is ill with schizophrenia, these adult foster cares, they can’t do things like Tony said, the security can’t put their hands on them. And the adult foster care um parents there, they can’t search their backpacks when they suspect that they have weapons on them. So, something kind of needs to change in that aspect avenue. overall putting patients in jail is kind of where we’ve gone wrong as a society for taking care of this situation and things do need to change otherwise we’re going to keep kicking the can down the road and things need to be dealt with. Um Shane, I’ve got another question for you. Um, like you’re saying, it was pretty much 28 years of working with trying to find something stable, a stable placement for Bradford. Can you detail some of the, you know, for lack of a better word, you know, roadblocks that kind of felt like to getting him the care that he needed? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that question. Um, I would the first thing that comes to mind is that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing. When it comes to putting him in the placement of a medical facility, when he would go to another one, they had no idea what was going on. They it was a whole another routine of trying to explain the symptoms, the situation. And of course, when this all started with Brad, everything was done on paper document. And as we’ve evolved, everything is now interconnected. So, I can’t really speak to the way that files are shared these days and and how things are updated. But the biggest headache that we had was trying to explain the whole situation over and over. And Brad with his illness, it was it was a situation where he was able to appear in front of another doctor and kind of straighten himself up and answer some questions correctly and get away from the doctor. and then lose it, you know. So, it it was it was really difficult with trying to explain like, hey, this is a severe situation. Well, he’s doing okay. It looks like he’s uh performing all right and he did this test, so we’re going to let him go. It’s like um you don’t realize, you know, let me say it again. you know, so the way that information is shared, again, I’m sure things are changing and evolving the way that the internet is interconnecting everybody much more the way it does nowadays. But, um, I would say between that and just having I mean, the big echo that we always heard was there’s no beds available. There’s no beds available. And that was the other thing because when he had his episodes for that matter, it was there was no place to put him. There was no emergency placement for him. You know, we just kind of had to deal with it. We’ve seen knives come out before, kitchen knives. We’ve deescalated the situation and and it police were never called, but be it was just a thing of just continued dealing with it. And at that time it was 14 years that we were dealing with such an incident episode. Um, I also have the article from my mom dealing with this where in 2007 she was listed on News Review front page in the continued problem and trying to deal with people just generally people with mental illness and other people reaching out to her, understanding her situation that mirrored uh that mirrored hers. and back then and looking from 2007 to 2025, we’ve just continued to kick this situation down the road and and here we are now. Thank you for sharing that jour that journey. Uh Dr. Santangelo, I uh the nodding throughout Shane’s uh comments there. Please share. Yeah, I I I really want to take a minute to thank Shane. I mean, Shane, I know having these conversations can’t can’t be easy for you. And I think the way that you’re being so eloquent in describing the struggles that families go through when they have um relatives who have significant mental illness is I’m so glad that you’re here and that um those watching can hear you describe it because I think so many people just don’t understand. So, first I want to say thank you um for being willing to share your story because I know that’s not easy. And second, and I apologize to go back to what I was saying at the beginning, but I think that um this really emphasizes just how complicated of a problem that was. You heard Shane talk about how uh it was the police and it was the different um mental health institutions and it was the different people that they were interacting with. And we really need to have a community approach to this problem. This is not a problem that the jails can solve or the state can solve by themselves or MSNO healthcare can solve by ourselves. And I think thinking about that is really important about this is a community issue. The the um crisis and access center is a community effort. Um and that’s the way we need to approach these things. And I think that we need to approach it all along that continuum of care because if we think about these situations we’ve spent some time talking about today, the vast majority of people who have mental illness are not violent and they still deserve excellent health care. And so making sure that we’re taking that community approach to how we provide these services in a sustainable way so they don’t appear and disappear and how we do that across the entire continuum of a care from people who have milder mental illness who can be cared for by their primary care doctor by a psychologist by a psychiatrist to people who need inpatient care all the way to the people as you just heard Shane so eloquently describe who need state level hospital beds and our state has a limited number of those long-term hospital beds that you heard Shane talking about us needing. Um, and that is a a big need that I think we all need to work together to help our state to understand and to to solve that problem. I I want to throw this statistic out. Uh, and I’m I’m asking you to fact check me on this. Northern Michigan faces a a bed shortage in that particular case. And I realize that there’s a broad spectrum of of treatment that goes beyond beds, but I think this one may be an example that it could be used across the board of the the lack of resources. Uh some areas reporting as few as 10 beds per 100,000 people and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is recommending closer really that number should be closer to 10 times that closer to a hundred. Is Tony you’re not in your head? Does that does that sound right? Are are we really that short? And again, that’s just for beds. I assume that it also applies for other things, but Tony, does does that sound right to you? Yes, it is right. Uh Michigan is uh second to the last in terms of the the all United States in terms of shortage of psychiatric beds. But northern Michigan is even worse. With all the north of Grand Rapids, we have about 40 psychiatric beds. 40 and we have zero bads for children which is un unbelievable. Senator Deoose uh there’s been a lot of talk about what the state can do in the first 29 minutes here. So figure it all out, solve it for us, right? Uh and then I’m sure these are all comments that you have heard time and time again. There have been committee meetings, everything like that in Lancing. What are your thoughts? Well, my thoughts are this. I mean, this is a complicated challenge. And I will say that it’s not for lack of trying. I mean, I look back at what just happened in Traverse City at that Walmart, and the hospital did a great job. They pulled out all the stops to help all the victims. They did everything they could. The the uh law enforcement was on the scene immediately. They did a great job. But as we dug a little bit deeper into this specific in instance, and it’s come up almost every time I talk about it, I can’t believe this is how our system as a whole works. While there’s individual bright spots, there doesn’t seem to be a big statewide strategy. And that breaks down along lots of levels. Let me give you an example. I talked to great guy, does great work, one of the people who’s part of the sheriff’s department up here in EMTT County. I talked to him after this incident because they evidently encountered Brad a couple times before this happened um starting as early as Thursday of that week and the incident happened on Saturday and they stopped him. He was sleeping somewhere he wasn’t allowed to sleep and they went and they moved him along and then they was got called about him again and so they went and they moved him along and they were going on with this story and they’re following proper procedures but everything in my mind is saying where is he supposed to go? I mean if I was Brad I’m sitting here okay I know I can’t be here you tell me where I’m allowed to be. I don’t have a house where where do I go? And you know I I see this at every single step step in this. I see back with Brad’s case and and Shane, correct me if I’m wrong on the details. I’ve been learning as much as I can here. And um but that in 2016, I guess he was brought up on charges and wasn’t allowed to be prosecuted because of his significant mental illness. He wasn’t wasn’t able to stand trial, but they just put him out in society. I mean, is that really what we do? That’s the answer. I’ve talked to so many different people trying to get to the bottom saying look what do you do in this case when somebody is really struggling we take them to the emergency room a lot and I talked to not Mson but a different hospital where they said that the record they have as a for a teenager is 280 days in the emergency room because they couldn’t get him placed anywhere in the state and the kid was in serious trouble. I mean, I can’t believe that’s actually the solution. And and you know, so I look at all these types of things and say we need to back up and and we’ve had we’re obviously in a period where we’re rethinking mental health and behavioral health, which is a good thing. We’ve destigmatized a lot of this. People aren’t afraid to admit when they’re struggling. These these are all great things. Um how our society has changed. But over the past 30 or 40 years, we are moving away from state hospitals. We’ve second in the country for the only to Alabama for the number of facilities we’ve closed and was that a good idea? I mean because we we what was that replaced with? And I understand there’s challenges for certain certain hospitals, but I’m not sure that we’ve ever come up with a comprehensive way to do this. I did some research just I I wanted to go back and remember because since I’ve been in the legislature, it seems like we’re dealing with a lot of different things and I get one project after another. Many of them may be great projects, but there’s no rhyme or reason behind it. But just in the past couple years, we’ve been we were able to get funding and we tried to get funding for a McLaren Shabboan campus, which is great, but they can’t find enough people sta staff to even run that place at capacity. We got some money for months in healthcare. We um we tried a big reform of Michigan’s mental health care system in 2021 related to CHS which there you know you step out and you try to do something good and people come out of the word this will never work this will never work this will never work and before you know it the waters are so muddy you don’t know what to do. We’ve been we were I was approached several years ago um when I first started in the Senate with this uh Grand Traverse County Juvenile Justice Center that was $25 million. I think it’s still in there as a request for $35 million because we have no beds. We did something in KCASa and there’s a $24 million appropriations asking in Kasa. We we um started up the 988 hotline for mental health. We’re doing all these different things. We’re spending a ton of money to fiscal year 23. $359 million for psych hospitals and 325 for a one-time um facility in North uh Northville. 364 million spent to say uh psych hospitals and 25 24 and it just keeps going up from there. But I got to tell you that it seems a little random and when you see something a complete breakdown of the system like we saw with what happened in Walmart and that was a complete breakdown. It’s sad for everybody. It’s obviously sad for the victims who got stabbed. It’s sad for the kids. I picture if my 11-year-old son was with me and had to see somebody get stabbed at Walmart. And then I’ll tell you what, um Shane, your brother has a good friend who the next morning um I got uh he posted something on Facebook that somebody shared with me about your brother’s history. And I sat there with tears in my eyes because it’s sad for Brad, too. Somehow we’ve got to back up. And I I won’t pretend to be the one who has all the answers to this, but if we can bring all the right people into the room and get them to all put aside, you know, looking out for their own turf, we’ve got to be able to come up with a better system than what we have right now. Thank you, Senator Tony. Uh yeah, I see your hand up. Uh uh so let’s let’s hear it, Tony. Okay, so let’s talk about the the psychiatric hospital that were closed. the the premise was that the money was going to follow to the community. Well, the money did not follow the community. So, all those beds that they were closed in the psychiatric beds, they were added to prisons. the prison population as multiplied like in 1955 it was 200,000 260,000 right now is 2 million and there are other variables that have influenced that increase but criminalizing mental health to substance abuse is number one. So if in our jail 40% of those individuals are on antiscychotic medication. So that’s what we have done. So you are right though uh Senator Deoose I think that you are doing a lot of things but as you said that’s random and that’s more like quote and I think that what we need to do is back up and basically do a comprehensive comprehensive reassessment of how to deliver services because yes there are people that can be seen by private practice providers I for example people like me and And there are people that need more assistance. There are the outpatient clinic uh the day hospital the there needs to be a continuum of care. And then there is the psychiatric hospital uh by the state psychiatric hospital that can be up to three six months a year. They don’t have to be like forever like they used to but at least three months where people can stabilize. I consider I compare a psychotic episode to a heart attack. In order to uh recover from a heart attack, you need three to six months. How can you stabilize in two days? So I think it’s important to allow those people with after they go through a psychotic episode enough time to stabilize especially when you start messing and changing medication to see how they react to the new medication. So we do need that last part and then we need supportive housing. We talk about housing but housing is not enough for this population. We need supportive housing. We need a housing plus ma case management and support and treatment because the number one goal with this population is engage them in treatment. Engage engage them in treatment. Thanks Tony. Uh Dr. Santangelo, you you spoke about this spectrum and we we’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about I don’t know the clinical term acute CA very serious cases where we’re talking about people needing beds but if you talk to parents here in Northern Michigan about you know they have a a child any just trying to find a therapist right there there is not an abundance of and I more common you know what trying to say, you know, like there it is hard to get an appointment for somebody that’s going through some stuff and it may not be the most serious stuff. It is hard to find therap feel that need too, the demand, the the the need for your services. I is that just are we just feeling that or is that true? I think it’s definitely true, Mark. and and u it’s definitely true that along this whole continuum we have needs and that includes people who have what it’s easy to say minor mental illness but if it’s your child who is having anxiety or depression it’s not minor anymore if it’s your family member so just like the other things that we’ve been talking about this isn’t just one piece of the community can solve this part either so healthcare has done some innovative things like putting behavioral health workers like psychologists and therapists right in primary care offices. So, you can see at your primary care um provider and they can send you across the hall to somebody who can start therapy or you can go to the the one place that you’re used to going to to get those services. Um but sustaining those is is difficult um with finding the right people who want to do those jobs. And then we look across to our colleagues in our community mental health services who are working so hard. Um but also really trying to meet the needs across that spectrum to take care of patients who have again and I hate to say minor mental illness because if if it’s your family or you it’s not minor but you don’t need a hospital bed. You need therapy or maybe you need some medication that you can manage on an outpatient um in an outpatient way. And we feel that need too and we’re doing a lot of work trying to address that across Northern Michigan. But we’re just one piece and a big part of what we’re doing is finding community partners that we can work with. Laura, I don’t know if you want to add anything there. Oh, I think you articulated it well, Dr. Santangelo, but I think one of the things, one of the themes I think you’re hearing through this conversation is none of us can solve this alone. Um, this really involves, you know, to to deliver that continuum of care in this community. Um, it takes a lot of organizations working together. Um, and I think we, you know, and I would just thank Tony, um, who has been, um, a voice and an advocate, um, and was a big part of making the crisis center, um, come become a reality. Um, and so, you know, working with, you know, with Tony and with Tony’s colleagues and other organizations locally, it’s just something that we are going to have to solve together as a community. No one organization is going to be able to solve this alone. And I really appreciate Senator Deuce’s comments that this is, you know, we need to work with legislature as well because there’s bigger picture issues here around funding around staffing and talent um that that are all part of um you know really addressing this in a meaningful way for our community. Yeah, Senator, let’s go back to you. um uh when it’s bigger than one organization or bigger than one community uh or bigger than one region, that’s where we tend to look to the lawmakers and be like, “Change the system or or or come up with a solution.” Can that can that be done? Is that something that when you talk to your fellow senators, everyone’s kind of like, “Yeah, we’re all hearing the same things when we go home.” Yeah. I mean, I I’ll tell you this is a passion of mine is to help develop a government that works better because frankly, a lot of times we don’t get a lot of things done, but this is such a felt need and we’re hearing it everywhere we go. And frankly, I don’t know a family, my own included, who hasn’t at some point wrestled with certain mental health issues, you know, and and some of them you they are on a continuum and some of them are are more lifelong than others, but they’re all devastating and they all require sincere sincere approaches. Now one thing that I I think we are good as as a government and that we can do well is that we can bring together all the various play players because this clearly needs a solution where we stop and frankly let’s use this what just happened at Walmart. I mean a lot of times people say nothing happens until something bad happens. Well something really bad happened and thank god everybody survived and thank God Brad is still alive and this turned out better than it could have for sure. But let’s not let’s now use this as as the impetus to bring people together and and again it relates to everything supportive housing. I’ve heard of there’s this is great we’re working on a supportive housing project up in the upper peninsula trying to get funding for it but again it’s a one-off but then then you’ve got if prov we need more providers and it’s a real workforce challenge. So in other areas where there’s a workforce challenge like nursing in general, we’ve actually gone out and worked with colleges and universities saying, “How can we make this better?” We actually had a had a bill which helped us to um get uh allow nurses to get four-year degrees at some of our community colleges. I mean, we may need to do some things. We may need to incentivize people to get into this line of work because this is a hard line of work. I mean, there these are not easy jobs. There’s certainly facilities that we need to address and that’s one thing where the government can really get involved is to sort of take a holistic approach and bring everybody together and really find out and sort of put all preconceived notions away like like I said I understand there was a lot of reasons to close the state hospitals but did we learn some things did did we as Tony was saying do it wrong I mean you know we we’ve now had 30 years to look at the ramifications and I hear this all the time I don’t know if it’s true or not but it Sounds plausible that when we close those doors of the state hospital in Traverse City, we just turn these people loose on the street. I mean, if that’s the ca case or if anything like it happened, that’s a problem. So, I’m willing to have these discussions. I think we just all put preconceived notions aside. I do think and I will tell you just how the process works and it’s in everything is you’ll hear a good idea and then 10 people who have their own projects they’d rather be funding will come and tell you why that was a bad idea. We’re going to have to just stop that. that if we decide this is a big enough need in the state that we actually want to solve the problem, we’re going to have to bring people together, put aside all those differences, and just figure it out. And then our job as legislators, uh, this, a lot of people don’t realize this. My job is not to figure this out. You guys are the professionals at it. My job is to put myself in a position where I can work with people and I can understand these and I know how to bring people together and then I know how to get the legislation done and how to get it funded. And that’s the position I and my colleagues in the legislature are in. We almost follow this, but I can help lead the process to get there. It’s going to take money. Going to take money. Oh, no. I see I see a lot of nods there. Shane Shane, do you have something to add? We’re going to unmute you here in just a second. All right. Go ahead, sir. Thank you. There’s a lot to unpack from what was said uh last. Um Senator Deoose, thank you. Um, the main notion I had and the reason for coming out and even saying something was so that the public could lower the pitchforks with what happened with Brad and watching for the many years that I’ve watched. It was a true case of of mice and men. Um, in knowing him, I mean, I didn’t respond to the angry comments. I know everybody’s got a right to be angry over what happened. Um, I just voiced I just got out there and voiced what I had to voice so people could understand the backstory and realize that there’s more to it than than just somebody being it wasn’t a matter of being angry. He and I don’t want to get into it too much, but the mix between delusions, dreams, maybe even the medication that he’s taken, you know, to give him wild dreams like this. But he there’s the FBI even asked me what does World War II have to do with this. And I’m like that’s something that I I kind of dismissed because to me it was crazy talk but he believed he was a soldier in World War II and that was something that he said when he had um I’m forgetting his Derek had control of the situation. He said I’m a soldier. It’s he’s never served before. You know it’s part of that delusional sense. Um, I’d like to move on though with all the messages that I’ve gotten over this whole incident with people that have family members in the same kind of scenario like myself and Tony. Um, a lot of people have reached out to me um just with their sympathies. I want to say to them if any of them are watching that I’m sorry that I’m not able to respond right away. Currently, as it’s summertime, I’m working about 10 to 11 and a half hours a day. So, I’ll respond when I can, and I apologize for not getting back to you right away. Um, the other thing with the staffing with Brad’s scenario years ago, I looked into being a counselor for that matter or um a therapist or a rehabilitation counselor, but it’s so far reaching. It’s six years to get into it like that. And something that Pete Budajage did which is kind of quite commendable. Um he opened up when a person would go on unemployment they had an opportunity to get their CDL license and go get uh the schooling for that. And that’s something that might be on the table as far as uh opening up that opportunity to get more staffing in. um some kind of program to help people get their foot in and maybe lowering the criteria to be able to start doing some time in volunteer work and or something along that lines, but getting more people into the business of helping in this whole scenario because um Dr. Joe and I’m scar I’m sorry with the last name. Um there this this whole situation from Brad’s scenario being one of the extreme cases to some of the people that are homeless that have kind of just given up where it’s not it’s a mental illness but it’s curable. You know there’s such a wide vast um plethora of different things that need to be addressed with all of this. And um like I said, I have this grand idea whether I present it here or maybe get with uh uh Senator, if I get with you and give you my rundown of of what I’ve kind of foreseen over the last 15 years of dealing with this and seeing what has been the blockage and what might work. So with that, I open it up to you guys as well. Can I jump in just Okay, Mark, you said you could jump in and interrupt. I I mean I just want to say I’d love to Shane sit with you and learn learn more hear your ideas. I mean I can tell you that people don’t realize this but most of the good ideas we come up with and bills we end up running aren’t ours at all. Somebody brought them to us from from society. But I want to just say something. One, you’re absolutely right about lowering the pitchfork. I mean you know I can’t imagine what it must be like for Brad to walk around with these things going on in his head. That is just heartbreaking. There’s no question. And and there’s so many others just like Brad out there. There’s no question about that. So, we do need to lower the pitch board. But Mark, I also want to want to say something. You’re right. And a lot of us run from that that point about funding. We This is going to cost money and we have to decide whether this is a real priority for us or not. I was in a committee meeting yesterday with uh in our appropriations committee and they were talking about all the cuts to SNAP and all the cuts to um to um Medicaid and these things are horrible. But I had to point out saying none of the none of these cuts have to happen. I mean even if they’ve happened to the federal government if we prioritize if those things which I believe we should prioritize are our top priority then maybe this isn’t the year we’re going to get this extra road funding. I mean, and and I think that’s what it’s going to take is it’s going to take some people who say, “Look, I’d love to do this. I’d love to build this new facility here for for sporting good events or I’d love to build these new roads. I’d love to do this.” But we have a crisis right now. And and so now is not the time. We need to make a priority out of really addressing this. I I think we can do it. I think we can do it, but it’s going to take some more uh not outrage, but uh people need to hear from from those who are suffering and who are living in who have ideas here. We need to hear from you, but I think we can do this and I think we can prioritize it, but it’s going to cost money. Uh Tony, you you’re nodding your head. We’d like to hear from you. Priority. I I I love priorities, you know. Uh but uh Senator Deoose, you are correct. Uh it is about priorities and when I mean we’re going into a period of austerity, we’re going to have less money to operate with because of all the federal cuts. Uh so it is very important for legislators to decide what is important and just like in a family when uh you uh have an austerity austerity time where there’s less money what do you prioritize you prioritize you know housing food you go with primary needs you don’t go with self-actualization dreams so I think it is the health and the safety of the community. I think it needs to be a priority especially the safety and that is what I keep telling this is not just about mental health it is also about community safety. So two weeks before my son died he said this illness will not allow me to be the man that I am. I’m afraid to hurt someone and I do not want to end up in prison. Wow. In looking through some of the comments that that viewers are submitting, um you uh you Kathy writing, “Year after year, the community needs surveys. Mental health is ranked as a top need. The time is now to start healing in our community and everybody everybody’s nodding their heads. Um uh so many things. We need to fight for supportive housing. It needs to be easier to seek help for for yourself and for for family members. uh we need that full consortium of care for mental health. These are all the things that that our panel has been saying and they are echoed here. Social workers needed in every school to have that resource available at there. We started this conversation by by saying it was going to take everybody at every level. Uh I think over the last uh 55 minutes you have shown us just how complicated and complex this situation is. I it is a challenge. But in the last little bit of time we have here I guess I’d like to go around and make a wish list. Make a wish or need list. All right. And Laura, you’re smiling, so I’m gonna put you on the spot first. What does Mson wish or need in order to have them be better equipped to handle this this need that our community has? Yeah, it’s a great question and I think we can all come up with um probably long wish list. Yes. But I’m going to boil it down to what what kind of our key challenges are and I I think I mentioned this before. It’s funding and it’s staffing. And I think, you know, sadly the um recent bill that was passed in Washington is going to impact Medicaid, Medicaid eligibility, Medicaid funding, which disproportionately impacts individuals who are seeking mental health services. So funding is important today. It’s going to become increasingly important in the future. And I think that is one area that kind of our voices together are going to be really important to advocate um to address some of the funding concerns. Um and again staffing, building those pipelines, incentivizing individuals to get into um behavioral health careers. They can be very rewarding careers. It’s definitely a calling. I really um I have so much respect for the members of our team who do this important work. Um but we need more of them. Um, and so I think we need to work together at the state level, at the local level with our colleges and universities, building those pipelines, getting individuals interested in careers and behavioral health. So my my wish list is simple. It’s people and it’s funding. Dr. Santangelo, uh, I assume that it’s probably a pretty similar wish list. It is. And and maybe I’ll just take a moment to um one of the wishes that I have we actually already it’s the wishes fulfilled and and that is for people who care about this deeply. So whether it’s um you know UPN North Live for hosting this forum or whether it’s Senator Deoose who clearly is passionate about this uh the amazing family members that we have here talking today the people who provide mental health care um across Northern Michigan whether that’s through a private office or community mental health or through Mson Healthcare or even in an emergency department or other areas we have amazing people who are working really hard to address the problems that you’ve heard about today. And so I think with knowing that we can we can make strides in this area. Um and I and I’ll just just to piggyback on Laura’s I think funding and staffing are absolutely the needs and that funding needs to be sustainable because grants are wonderful and do a huge work u but it’s hard to start a service and then have it go away um shortly after. So thanks for the time. Absolutely. Shane would like to come to you. Uh a wish or need in order to address this situation. What would you like to see happen? Well, with a wish, uh, a wise man once said, “A wish will never come true.” As soon as you take action to make that wish come true, it becomes a goal. So as far as a wish is concerned, I I would just wish that the silver lining of all this does work out to come to a balance to find a way to deal with this situation on the different levels that we’re dealing with and possibly Michigan becoming number one in the way that they deal with people with uh mental health issues. So that would be my wish. Um, as far as the needs, I think we see I think we need a lot. Um, we need we need help with this issue, you know, whether it’s volunteer work or donations, state funding or federal funding. I believe to this situation because I believe as we accept drugs and normalize recreational drug use I believe this in the future and if we don’t do something with it uh our society is really going to be thank that’s my thoughts thank you Shane Tony uh like come to you wish or needs in order for is the situation to be addressed. I’m going to go with goals. Okay. Okay. All right. My goals are going to are to continue to advocate for more psychiatric beds in Northern Michigan, to continue to advocate for a new jail, uh more training for correction officers, um and uh definitely more beds for children. And then uh um my goal the next couple years is to work on opening a re-entering center for re-entering uh a rehabilitation re-entrying center for people after they leave jail. And I would like with the new jail uh my goal is not to call it a jail but to call it a justice rehabilitation center. Thank you Tony. Uh, Senator Deoose, you you’ve heard a lot of wishes and needs, and you know, people, I I imagine, often come to you with their wish list and their need list, but you’ve heard all of that. I want to know what your wishes and needs are for this situation. Yeah. In fact, I just wrote it down here because it’s very clear. if we want to get the funding and the policies that could re really make an impact here. What I need just just and every legislator will need this is we need clear guidance on what we need to do spoken with a clear voice and a unified voice um to develop a plan that if implemented would radically change the system as it is. That’s what I need is I can’t be constantly hit with one idea after another in these things. We need to bring these groups together and develop the plan even if we help orchestrate that and some of my colleagues do whereby we know what we’re supposed to be working on and it’s not something new every single day. It’s something we can stick to for the long run and really make the investments that need to happen. All right. Well, I want to thank you all for joining us here tonight. You all have shared some extremely valuable perspectives and not just with us but with those who have joined us online as well. Yeah, absolutely. It is um if we’re wa if if those that aren’t in this fight and and and in this mission uh we all walked away I imagine tonight uh with a little better understanding of just how complex this situation is, how many layers there are to it. Uh I think we all know how great the need is across that spectrum of mental health services that that that our community needs. Uh but I I think we’re all beginning to understand not only the importance of it. Uh if we haven’t up to this point, but also what it is going to take to try to significantly make a dent and address some of these things. And and we thank our our panel for providing us that insight. Uh and uh we want to encourage everyone to to speak up, reach out. Uh if you are going through a mental health situation, get the help you need. Try the best to get the help you need. If you’re in a situation where you can provide some help to these organizations, uh some feedback to the lawmakers, we encourage you to do that as well. And before we say goodbye to our panelists, we do want to say as well, if you hopped on a little bit later and you want to watch our full conversation with our panelists tonight, this will be on our UPN North Live YouTube. So you can go back and watch our full conversation. Thank you very much panel for joining us and uh thank you very much Northern Michigan. Thank you. Thank you.
UpNorthLive News is organizing a town hall event focusing on the pressing need for expanded mental health services in Northern Michigan.
The event features a panel of healthcare providers, lawmakers, and other experts who will discuss the current state of mental health services and explore potential improvements:
Toni Stanfield: Psychologist and Co-founder of Before, During, and After Incarceration (BDAI)
Senator John Damoose: MI 37th Senate District
Laura Glenn: Chief Operating Officer, Munson Healthcare
Dr. Joe Santangelo: Chief Medical Officer, Munson Healthcare
Shane Gille: Brother of Walmart stabbing suspect
The town hall is scheduled for Thursday, August 14, at 7 p.m. and will be streamed live on the UpNorthLive Facebook, YouTube, and X pages. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage with the panelists.
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