Mental-health providers urge state to vaccinate workers and severely mentally ill

NEWPORT – A statewide coalition of community-based behavioral-health providers is urging the state to move their front-line employees and people living with severe mental illness higher on the priority list for COVID-19 vaccination.

Leaders of the organizations assert that both groups are at significant risk of contracting coronavirus disease.

“We’re at the mercy of our state to recognize the importance of mental-health and substance-use providers and their patients because the initial state guidelines leave much room for interpretation as to who will be receiving the first doses of the COVID-19 vaccine,” Jamie Lehane, president and CEO of Newport Mental Health, told The Journal.

“There is a lack of understanding that mental health clinicians are essential healthcare providers that have continued to provide face-to-face services to very high-risk individuals and families,” added Lehane, whose organization serves Aquidneck Island.

“It is imperative that the Department of Health work directly with behavioral health providers to ensure an equitable and effective distribution process,” said Cliff R. Cabral, CEO of East Providence-based Horizon Healthcare Providers. “Our organizations support thousands of individuals across a wide service spectrum and our workforce is clearly at increased risk.”

Another coalition leader, Tanja F. Kubas-Meyer, executive director of the RI Coalition for Children and Families, has urged the state to prioritize employees of the many organizations that provide services to residential, foster-care and other programs for children, youth and family members, many of them “in crisis.”

Kubas-Meyer told The Journal that “all these organizations are critical to the state’s infrastructure and organizations work with families across the state’s departments and programs. Access to vaccination, like testing, is critical to keep the workforce intact as well as to protect already vulnerable children, youth, and families.”

And in an email to officials at several state departments, Benedict F. Lessing Jr., president and CEO of Woonsocket-based Community Care Alliance, wrote that “community-based organizations providing behavioral health and social services are as exposed to COVID-19 as First Responders and other Medical Personnel other than those providing direct care to COVID-19 patients.”

Lessing added: “COVID has exposed the State's fragmentation among its Health and Human Services resources; particularly where State Agency alignment is concerned. Moreover, there is a need for greater collaboration and planning with community providers and transparency. We need to be on the same team as we are trying to protect our workforces and the lives of the thousands of individuals and families we serve.

Coalition leaders cited an article last month in JAMA Psychiatry, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American Medical Association,

“People with serious mental illness (SMI) are at increased risk of being infected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and have higher subsequent rates of hospitalization, morbidity, and mortality,” the JAMA Psychiatry authors wrote.

They concluded: “Factors that contribute to worse outcomes include concomitant medications, poorer premorbid general health, physical comorbidity, reduced access to medical care, and environmental and lifestyle factors such as lower socioeconomic status, overcrowding, smoking, or obesity. In light of these vulnerabilities, it is important that people with SMI are a priority group to receive a vaccination.”

Leaders tell The Journal that they have met virtually with officials from the state Health Department and the Department of Behavioral Health, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals, and that some steps have been taken to address their concerns.

Newport Mental Health’s Lehane said that “the bottom line is that the state left us out of the initial plan and they are making efforts now to remedy this. The other takeaway is that the whole effort is a pretty chaotic mess. It feels like every provider is on their own.”

The Health Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Mental-health providers urge state to vaccinate workers and severely mentally ill

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