One election issue I haven't heard too much about is improving mental health care services. I wonder which party would be best in that area?
Psychiatric services for kids are known to be a major problem, as most doctors are just not very interested in practicing child psychiatry or psychology. It's a hugely stressful job, and it's not exactly lucrative. But it is a critical need: kids who don't get helped through problems early on in life may never grow up to live normal lives. In the worst scenarios, they wind up hurting themselves or others (for example, the teens accused of killing Nina Courtepatte who were described as "time bombs" as though it was inevitable something like that would eventually happen). In the United States, the situation sounds worse - apparently health insurance in the U.S. won't pay for mental health care even when psychiatrists are available, and some parents wind up abandoning their kids or surrendering them to the state so that they can access some form of treatment.
It's nice to know it's not all doom and gloom for kids. This article from the New York Times talks about a very interesting new therapy being used in Mexico for getting abused kids to open up.
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