West Virginia, the Almost Heavenly state, has always been infamous for ranking last or near last place in a variety of statistics. Just this September, we were ranked “least happy” state in the country, due to the highest shared adult depression rates. 

In May 2021, The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) declared West Virginia to be in a behavioral health care crisis. In the months since, nothing has changed in the Mountain State, which Mental Health America (a nonprofit “dedicated to addressing the needs of those living with mental illness”) ranks 39th in overall Serious Mental Illness (SMI) reports. 

What controllable elements can contribute to mental illnesses? Substance abuse, poverty, and oppression are all examples of preventable destroyers of mental and physical wellbeing. In West Virginia, those factors are exacerbated by an isolating barricade of mountains and a lack of media attention. Unless something changes, mental illness is bound to breed over and over again. 

Central to the problem is a scarcity of group homes and behavioral health facilities, as well as a shortage of mental health providers and other caretaking professionals. Simply being admitted to a facility is not enough: 24-hour-care is necessary. Numerous examples of improper training and supervision are cited in the West Virginia DHHR May report. One specific example WSAZ News Channel has detailed was of a “facility in Cabell County [that] did not train its staff, and instead had staff just sign a form saying they had been trained. The care facility only began training people on patient programs and safety protocols after someone died.”

Mental Illness may not be physically visible, but that is no reason to treat it less seriously than physical illness.