The Nashes’ decision to speak with elected officials regarding their concerns about lack of funding for mental health care was “not a difficult one” said Debra Wentz, a close friend of the family and chief executive officer of the nonprofit New Jersey Association of Mental Health Agencies.
Nash and his son, John Charles Nash, suffer from schizophrenia and have a stake in “the continuation and maintenance of the same level of funding for mental health services” as in previous years despite looming budget cuts, Wentz said.
Wentz noted that she has arranged for the Nashes to meet with Gov. Jon Corzine and Senate President Richard Codey.
“In this kind of climate, I knew that I needed something to give [mental health care] increased visibility,” Wentz explained, “and I thought that no one has ever done more in fighting the stigma and discrimination than the Nashes through their lending of their story.”
Any cuts to mental health care funding would be “devastating,” she said, as they would render already expensive treatment nearly inaccessible for thousands of ill people.
“We are talking about the economic crisis and the stimulus package,” Nash told The Star-Ledger earlier this month. “You could give funding to all sorts of things, [such as] public works projects. Well, mental health can be viewed the same way ... Send out money to the people through mental health.”
The National Alliance on Mental Illness released a report earlier this month assessing each state’s mental health system and graded New Jersey’s a C, higher than the national average grade of a D. The group criticized the state’s “overcrowded and unsafe” psychiatric facilities, but it praised “peer” self-help centers located in every county and organizations like the Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT), which manages the care of Nash’s son. PACT is a $30 million state-funded program made up of a team of psychiatrists, nurses, peers, social workers and case managers who are available on a 24-hour-a-day basis to do outreach and manage care for mentally ill patients not living in a hospital.
Wentz said that even with the Nashes’ help, it will be a “tough fight” to improve New Jersey’s mental health care, but she added that she remains optimistic.
“[‘A Beautiful Mind’] rehabilitated the image of what someone with a mental illness is like,” Wentz said. “We’ve made a lot of progress. We have a lot more to make.”
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