About 4% of people on the Space Coast have a serious mental illness, including psychotic disorder, serious mood disorder and severe major depression.
- More mental health inpatient beds are needed
- Circles of Care and Palm Point Behavioral Health provide these inpatient services
- Health insurance, or lack thereof, plays a role in people seeking and getting help.
There’s a lot of talk about mental health in Brevard. So we recently asked Natalie Hussein of NAMI Brevard (National Alliance for Mental Illness) to fill us in on truths and trends about mental health in our community.
Here is some of what Hussein told us, from NAMI’s perspective. We’ve whittled it down to five things we think you should know:
More:‘This is an epidemic…we keep ignoring it.’ Why Brevard’s homeless survey matters to all
- Mental health care resources: Brevard County’s population in 2024 was 657,000 people. NAMI estimates 4% of residents have a serious mental illness — we’re talking 26,280 people across the Space Coast. Serious mental illnesses include psychotic disorder, serious mood disorder and severe major depression.
- More beds needed: Looking at national standards and the figures on mental illness in Brevard, the county should have 325 beds to help treat people with serious mental health illnesses. There should be 50 beds for every 100,000 residents.
- What we have: Brevard has 190 beds, split between two crisis stabilization units. Those are at Circles of Care, based in Melbourne, and Palm Point Behavioral Health in Titusville. The county lost 24 beds in May 2022 when then-Rockledge Regional Medical Center closed their inpatient behavioral health unit. (That hospital is now part of Orlando Health.)
- The insurance conundrum: For those who don’t have health insurance, that often becomes a barrier to people with mental health issues getting the effective care they need. In Brevard County, 17% of people ages 18-64 don’t have health insurance, and 7% of children ages 0-18 lack health insurance coverage.
- Mental health care spending: Individual states have their own funding, services, policies and laws. Some states have been high-performing, expanding their capacity to serve those needing mental health care. Florida is not a high-performing state in this area, coming in 46th in spending. Florida is the third-largest populated state with 23 million residents. It spends $36 per resident. Compare that to Maine, which has 1.7 million residents and spends $360 per capita (person) on mental health care. Hussein told us, “there has been increased spending signed by the governor last year, so we hope to see increased access to mental health care in the near future.”
More:‘It gets better. I’m proof.’ Are people more comfortable talking about mental health?
This reporting is supported by a Journalism Funding Partners grant. Mental Health Reporter Sara Paulson can be reached at [email protected].
link
