Kitty Westin, advocate and board member for The Emily Program Foundation, testified on proposed cuts in funding for mental health services in the budget passed by the Minnesota Legislature.
“My name is Kitty Westin. I am a Duluth native who raised 4 children in Chaska. I serve on the boards of The Emily Program Foundation in St. Paul and the federal Eating Disorders Coalition in Washington, DC.
“My 40-year-old son Jamie has needed 24/7 professional residential care for his profound developmental disability since he was 13.
“In February, 2000, my 21-year-old daughter Anna died after being unable to obtain adequate treatment during her five year battle with eating disorders—even though we’re an affluent family with a Cadillac insurance policy.
“If you doubt the reality of mental illness in young people or the urgent need for early intervention in places like schools, I invite you to ride along with a peace officer for a shift, come with me to visit Jamie at Rolling Acres in Excelsior, or look deeply into this photograph and imagine your child or grandchild dead from mental illness on the verge of adulthood.
“Thanks to the intense advocacy—and cooperation between Minnesota’s insurance companies, state government and mental health providers— Minnesota has a little more access to eating disorders treatment than 11 years ago.
“Still, treatment resources are stunningly inadequate—fewer than 35 inpatient beds statewide for the 200-thousand Minnesotans with eating disorders—an illness as prevalent among Minnesotans as breast cancer.
“The proposed cuts to mental health services will reverse promising gains, drying up access to proven mental health treatment.
“Complicating matters even more, nearly everyone with an eating disorder has other mental illness, such as P-T-S-D, chemical dependency, depression, and the like.
“These cuts are penny-wise and pound foolish, because untreated mental illness generates enormous losses in employee productivity, overtaxes an already strained law-enforcement community, and forces the use of more expensive and less-effective mental health services like emergency rooms.
“Few people embrace the opportunity to pay more taxes. Our family is in a higher tax bracket than most—but we know that Minnesota’s deficit can’t be fixed with cuts alone. In fact, we are willing to pay more so Minnesota can support adequate, life-saving mental health services.
“There is no doubt that the proposed cuts will lead to higher overall costs to the state—and more unnecessary deaths like Anna’s. These cuts will not save money or lives. I can guarantee you, however, that the will cause more heartache and suffering. Nobody deserves this.Thank you.”
