Mental health problems have risen sharply during the pandemic, and lawmakers in Trenton want to make treatment for them easier to get.
Assembly Majority Leader Louis Greenwald called the stats on this staggering. “More than 1 in 3 adults have reported symptoms of anxiety or depression disorder since May 2020,” he said. “That’s a staggering number, 1 in 3 adults. This is significantly higher than the reports and the numbers that we received from the previous year, where 1 in 10 adults reported symptoms between January and June.”
Those numbers are for the US as a whole. Greenwald said statistics show more than 40% of adults in New Jersey reporting symptoms of anxiety or depression in December 2020.
He is introducing legislation to improve access to services in emergency rooms and urgent care centers, but said telemedicine, which he said is uniquely suited to mental health care, must play a big part here. “To be able to have someone who can talk to a professional, ask questions, have a conversation,” he said, “we’ve seen that the benefits of this is it has certainly brought down the anxiety and depression, but has also helped stabilize people from their medication standpoint.”
One of the bills he is introducing, he said, tackles the question of funding. “That sets up a zero-interest loan program to help small businesses and community health providers provide integrated care,” he said. “We’ve got to think creatively and allocate resources in the budget, but also look at programs like that that can help get money on the street.”
The other bills would help ER patients get mental health care and introduce mental health care at urgent care centers.