STATE AND VETERANS ADMINISTRATION COOPERATION TOWARDS BETTER MENTAL HEALTH
HARVEY J. TOMPKINS M. D.1
1 Director of Psychiatry and Neurology Service, Veterans Administration, Washington, D. C.
The requirements of the Veterans Administration psychiatric program are similar to those of all organizations interested in mental health. We need to devise methods to improve the understanding and acceptance of mental illnesses. Specifically, the understanding and acceptance of the individual psychiatric patient by the man in the street, legislators, and by Medicine itself. The degree of success in improving our public relations will determine, in large part, our ability to lessen the critical need for more and better-trained mental health personnel, and increase the opportunities for research. Our accomplishments will be greater if there are cooperative efforts; indeed, with our tremendous mental health commitments and limited resources, it is doubly necessary that we use efficiently and effectively what is available to us.
Cooperation must be more than an appealing word. Since mental hospitals and clinics are for the most part public agencies, there is unique opportunity here for cooperation between government levels. It is, of course, necessary that each governmental unit retain its integrity, its autonomy, and its right to shape itself to meet its particular mission. When we speak of cooperation here, we do not, therefore, mean any organic integration. We do mean a pooling of professional resources, if this is advantageous to both, and a willingness on the part of each to perform such professional activities on behalf of the other, as it can be reasonably asked to do. Two pertinent recommendations have been made by the Advisory Committee to the Psychiatry and Neurology Service of the Veterans Administration, a Committee composed of educators and practitioners in the disciplines of psychiatry, neurology, clinical psychology, social service, and nursing:
"1. It is believed by the Committee that it is now desirable to bring together information about existing on-going collaboration between the Veterans Administration and the community in the area of mental health, and ideas for further collaboration which have not yet been put into practice. A survey should be undertaken jointly by appropriate organizations or agencies to bring together such knowledge and report it in such form as would be provocative to officials, helpful in planning specific collaborations, and provide material for formulation of policies governing collaborations.
"2. In order that these thoughts of collaborative efforts) may be more than pious hopes, it is suggested that in every state a Mental Health Council be formed, composed of representatives of all the agencies interested in mental illness (or even broader). Such a Council would be a medium of exchange and planning and assume no operating functions. It would meet regularly. Participation in this, and encouragement by the Veterans Administration, is a second specific recommendation of the Committee."
