Vermonters ingrained in the healthcare community, had the chance to sound off on addiction and mental health services.
The speakers included people in need of help as well as those giving it. Those listening were policy makers at the state level, jotting down notes constantly to make sure they captured every concern presented.
It was a full room of passionate people at the Elks County Club in Montpelier and each time someone spoke the room reverberated with hope of fixing a recognized problem.
"We're doing this on a wing and a prayer," Mark Ames said.
Ames is the Coordinator of the Vermont Recovery Network helping people bounce back from drug and alcohol abuse when they might be most vulnerable of regressing after they leave hospital treatment.
"Addiction is a chronic disease but we've been treating it with an acute care response, i.e. a short period of time of treatment," Ames said.
Karen Lorentzon sees the same thing in her line of work at the Vermont Psychiatric Services of Rutland.
"You're expected to be cured in 21 to 28 days," Lorentzon said of patients in need of mental health services.
While Lorentzon's and Ames' work might seem disconnected, Ames says that up to 75% of the people that go to Vermont recovery centers have received mental health treatment before. But these programs are running on fumes from a lack of state funding, Ames recovery program gets only $55,000 of support a year.
Other issues brought up at the forum included the medication of mental health patients and a lack of compensation for professionals who received many degrees and licenses, at a high cost.
As a long-term recovery addict, Ames is pressing hard to find the support that helped him fight his addiction.
"I was a success in recovery because I had recovery supports and what we're trying to create that broad level of support for people," Ames said.
It was the kind of support Lorentzon wishes she had when she was taking care of her mentally ill mother as a teenager...when she was fifteen her mother died because of a drug overdose and she found herself homeless.
"Had we gotten the proper services and support that we needed to continue our lives perhaps things would have had different outcomes there's no guarantee of that but these stories continue today," Lorentzon said.
Robin Lunge, Health Care Reform Director in Vermont, sat on the panel today. She says that the panel will take their notes from the forum and go to the drawing board to see how and if they can implement some of the ideas shared today, eventually taking their report to the state legislature.
