At Harsha’s Mental Health symposium Wednesday, speakers on the workforce panel included Adam Buck of Harsha, Dr. Janet Clark of Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College, Indiana State University’s JoEllen Henson, Jana Piantedosi of Ivy Tech Community College and Harsha’s Dr. Darla Hinshaw. Submitted photo
The need for mental health services is at an alltime high, but access to those services can be challenging to attain.
That was the central conundrum Wednesday morning at a symposium sponsored by Harsha Behavioral Center at the Terre Haute Convention Center.
The symposium “brought together the stakeholders in the community to discuss the barriers that we face in mental health and hopefully by identifying those barriers, we can come up with some solutions,” said Roopam Harshawat, president and CEO of Harsha Behavioral Center in Terre Haute.
Panelists included Union Health President and CEO Steve Holman, State Sen. Jon Ford (R-Terre Haute), Terre Haute Police Chief Shawn Keen and Michelle Edwards of Valley Professionals Community Health Center.
Ford will take information he gathered from the conversations to the next Statehouse legislative session, where he will address the workforce issue.
Harshawat said that workforce has become a nationwide problem for all mental healthcare providers.
“There’s not enough workforce to take care of all the individuals we serve,” she said. “Due to COVID, demand for mental health services have gone up tremendously. We are not able to meet that demand because of the challenge with the workforce right now.”
The reason, Harshawat said, is that “We cannot compete with other industries to pay at an equal level because of the reimbursements we receive. We want to pay our employees better so we can retain them.”
For example, she noted, “In Indianapolis, nurses are paid between $40 and $100 an hour. Our entity cannot afford to pay those kind of wages because we just don’t have the kind of resources to pay them.”
Jay Chaudhary, director of the state’s Division of Mental Health and Addiction, served as keynote speaker. He provided a slide show of what the state was working on in terms of facilitating making mental health services available to all Hoosiers.
“He has some really good ideas, but they will take time to be implemented,” Harshawat said.
Even a seasoned professional like Harshawat said she learned something from the symposium.
“What I learned is what the state is doing — that slide show was very educational for us to learn what the state is doing to combat some of the challenges that each and every community in the state is facing with mental health,” she said.
“One of the things is the 988 [suicide hotline] call center, and the other thing is they are going to create entities that will provide crisis management,” Harshawat continued. “Those are the two important, instrumental things in meeting the challenges in the mental health.”
Chaudhary lauded Harsha for hosting the symposium.
“Conversations such as those today are essential to finding continued solutions, services and resources for those needing mental health support,” he said. “We appreciate the leaders in West Central Indiana who are prioritizing this dialogue and their collaboration to cultivate a healthier future for Indiana.”
Harshawat introduced a new Harsha service, Naveen. The word means “new,” she explained, and its goal is to locate grant funding for individuals who are uninsured or underinsured, and to fill in gaps that their insurance does not cover, thereby providing new beginnings for individuals with mental illness.
There has long been a stigma surrounding mental illness that forced it to lurk unacknowledged amongst the shadows. COVID did bring the issue to the public consciousness, as a number of celebrities and athletes discussed their own mental struggles. The public is also confronting an upshot in adolescent suicide rates.
Yet the stigma remains, Harshawat said. “The discussion has become more public because of the unprecedented challenges are being faced everywhere right now,” she added.
Seeking help at the first sign of psychological distress is key, Harshawat said: “Your situation can improve drastically if you get help at an appropriate time.”
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