By Claudia Mohr
The Wellness Connection was created in June 2022 as a nonprofit organization dedicated to
bringing awareness to mental health issues in our community. We publish our journal in the
Wood River Weekly monthly, as a four-page insert. We are motivated by our community’s fragmented and threadbare mental health system.
Currently, there are 170 psychiatrists for a population of 1.9 million statewide and zero psychiatrists in Blaine County. We have no 24-hour, highly skilled treatment facilities for people with serious mental health issues. When members of our community with mental health issues go untreated, they end up in crisis care at an emergency room, a state hospital, or jail. How do we address this mental health crisis?
Our alarming housing crisis is a direct cause and consequence of our mental health crisis. Housing instability is a major cause of toxic stress and suicide, and contributes to our overburdened and understaffed health providers.
Idaho has the lowest ratio of patient to provider in the country (3,180 patients per physician), according to Mental Health America, a leading nonprofit mental health organization. For the third consecutive year, Idaho was ranked 49th out of 50 states as the most underfunded mental health provider.
According to a report by St. Luke’s, housing instability and substance abuse are significant contributors to suicide. Last year, in 2022, we had eight suicides in the eight weeks between January and February. The majority were men in their 40s. All had access to firearms and used these lethal means as the method of suicide.
They also reported “the lack of availability of mental health providers is a significant need across the St. Luke’s service area. Suicide is a public health problem and a leading cause of death in Idaho.”
In the past six months, The Wellness Connection has featured nonprofits such as NAMI, Crisis Hotline, The Advocates, Hospice of the Wood River Valley, Rainbow’s End Recovery Center, Men’s Second Chance Living and Higher Ground. The services these nonprofits provide to our community are beyond what we would have expected. We hope our journal encourages you to take advantage of these services.
At The Wellness Connection, our goal is to bring these issues to light and educate the community on the various resources the local nonprofit organizations can provide to ameliorate some of these problems. We hope the community can move past crisis management to a more balanced approach to handling mental health issues.
