By Michael Daher
As a pharmacist, I usually write about healthcare-related news and try to offer a different approach or interpretation as to how that news can affect the American consumer. Today, however, I feel compelled to talk about the mental health of our country.
Back when I was a new graduate of the Oregon State University College of Pharmacy, I took a job as an ambulatory care pharmacist. That meant I had my own clinic where I would treat patients who had diabetes and all co-morbidities surrounding it, including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and vaccine status, and ensured these patients had eye/foot care appointments as well. I managed the Old Town Clinic in downtown Portland, Oregon. The clinic was a federally qualified healthcare center (FQHC) just a block or two from the primary sites of the Occupy Wall Street riots.
What made my patients more complex is that they were homeless and suffered from severe mental health comorbidities such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.
Managing this clinic may have been the proudest accomplishment of my professional life. What I found was that these patients needed to feel safe and heard. They had a voice and a pharmacist who wanted the best for them. Once I had their trust, they took my advice to heart, and we were able to save a lot of lives and get people the help they needed.
What I have seen transpire since 2016 in our country is of great concern to me, and lately, to a majority of Americans. Recently, there was a poll that showed 38 percent of those who identify left of center felt it would be justified to kill Donald Trump. Social media has been a beautiful tool in reconnecting family and friends, but it’s also been awful in posing as a forum where people can spew hate at how an assassin missed the President in Butler, PA. Wednesday, it was used as a forum to express joy at the murder of a conservative influencer.
It’s interesting to hear our politicians use these tragedies to call for more gun control. I read yesterday how Charlie Kirk once said some deaths are the price we pay to have our Second Amendment, and those celebrating his death argue his own words haunted him. The issue here is not the gun. It’s never the gun. It’s the ideology of the person behind the gun. In the UK, they had 54,500 knife stabbings last year. When you have the idea to murder in your mind, it doesn’t matter the weapon. The motivation already exists and a way to kill can be found.
The theme here is that we as a country have a mental health crisis we need to address. When Luigi Mangioni killed the CEO of United Healthcare, he was celebrated as a hero by some. He was fed up with the US healthcare system and felt murdering a CEO would send a message. A modern day Robin Hood. Robin Westman, the killer in the Minnesota church shooting, was an identified transgender. The Charlie Kirk assassin yesterday had ammunition engraved with transgender and anti-facist ideology.
By affirming transgender ideology, we affirm God made a mistake in creating the person. Worse, if the transgender person themselves doesn’t have faith, and rather hears and affirms they are a mistake, what message are we sending?
Lastly, just a mere few days ago, a poor Ukranian imigrant named Iryna Zarutska was murdered by a mentally un-well person with 14 prior convictions. Walk through skid-row in Los Angeles and you can see the mental illness first hand.
It’s time that President Trump declare a mental health crisis in our country. We need more mental healthcare access to people who are suffering and need an outlet for help. I will note, as a pharmacist, that SSRI’s are the No. 1 treatment in depression/anxiety, and also carry a black box warning of increased suicidal ideation. I also want to note, for every study that found SSRI’s to be safe and effective, big pharma also suppressed studies that found negative or net neutral effects as well. Medications arent always the answer. We need to talk, have dialogue, find common ground, and become less polarized as a nation. We need our elected leaders, church leaders, community leaders, school counselors to check in on our youth.
We need democrats and republicans to come together and tone down the rhetoric. There should be a moment of prayer for Charlie Kirk in the halls of congress, as well as Minnesota House leader Melissa Hortman. A joint condemnation of political violence on all sides, and a willingness to work together to better the lives of Americans. Stop with the finger pointing. Stop using death to push an agenda on gun control. Our youth need to see our leaders engaging them and helping them through whatever crisis they may experience.
As I was lucky to treat and care for my patients, our elected leaders MUST be there for us, as a nation. Yesterday, the one man who tried engaging in dialogue and conversation was shot. I fear that we as a nation are walking a road to chaos and anarchy. Ronald Regan once said “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction”. We do not want to be a banana republic, or a third world country where political killings are common and or accepted.
