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Security guard reports two men using drugs in parking garage

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Letter to the Editor: Heed warning on sanctuary cities by District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis

<p>For heart trouble or other physical trauma, you generally can get top-notch and timely care today without leaving the Greater Wyoming Valley.</p><p>Not so, however, for mental health illnesses, such as depression, and substance abuse. Instead, the road to recovery for area residents coping with those issues too often involves delays in receiving treatment, detours and disappointment. Some sufferers presumably don&#8217;t even seek help.</p><p>On the bright side, the situation could improve dramatically in the next few years, as more community leaders focus on marshaling resources to plug the gap in mental health services. Nearly $900,000 in grant money, with more promised, already has been targeted to two nonprofits on the front lines of the effort to bring relief to troubled minds.</p><p>The Commonwealth Medical College, which has campuses in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and elsewhere in the region, reportedly will receive $640,000 this year toward establishing a psychiatric residency program. One goal will be to train primary care doctors to recognize mental health issues in patients and, when needed, refer them to specialists. Similarly, the Volunteers in Medicine clinic in Wilkes-Barre will be given $250,000 for the startup of a program in the city providing free behavioral health services and wellness programs.</p><p>Those grants were among more than $1.5 million awarded this month by the AllOne Foundation &amp; Charities, a philanthropic outgrowth resulting from the former Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania&#8217;s merger in 2015 with Highmark Inc.</p><p>It should be noted that a pre-merger transfer of $90 million to AllOne has been challenged in Luzerne County Court. Opponents of the maneuver understandably question whether the money should have been used to more directly benefit policyholders.</p><p>This editorial isn&#8217;t intended to reflect on the lawsuit&#8217;s merits. Rather, it serves to remind residents that more can, and must, be done to complement the mental health services already available through First Hospital in Kingston and other local providers of compassionate care to the anxious, the distraught, the addicted, the desperate.</p><p>Time and again, studies and surveys have suggested that the availability of mental health programs for residents of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties falls short of demand. In one &#8220;community health needs assessment,&#8221; the results of which were released in April 2014, nearly half of respondents reported feeling down or hopeless for one to two days during the prior two weeks, according to the survey takers.</p><p>The same year, staffers with The Commonwealth Medical College served as technical consultants during an assessment of the region&#8217;s mental health services network. Dr. Steven Scheinman, president and dean of the college, said then, &#8220;It is clear, I think to everybody in this area, &#8230; that the single greatest need in health care in this region is for mental and behavioral health services.&#8221;</p><p>For patients and their family members waiting to see action on the matter, there finally appears to be light on the horizon.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>SEEK HELP</strong></p><p>Crisis counseling and referrals to the area&#8217;s mental health programs are available by contacting Help Line. Visit helpline-nepa.info. Or call 1-888-829-1341 or, where available, 211.</p></factboxMeta></div>

Our Opinion: Mental health care deservedly becoming bigger priority in NEPA