|
Proposed House Budget Cuts Could Mean No End In Sight for Emergency Department Boarding
CONCORD, NH – This week the NH House will vote on a budget that proposes to drastically cut critical mental health programs. If such a budget were enacted, it would almost certainly result in more people in a mental health crisis waiting even longer in NH emergency departments for an inpatient bed. And it would undo over 18 months of collective work through the Mission Zero initiative that has led to real progress – significantly reduced wait times for adults and, in both December ’24 and February ’25, reaching the goal of zero adults boarding on multiple days. Something we had last seen briefly during the height of the Covid pandemic.
These cuts would impact crisis services, community-based care, and housing that allows people with mental illness to live in the community. In addition, the proposed Medicaid rate cuts in the House budget would undermine the very foundation of Mission Zero and our mental health system.
In 2011, after years of disinvestment in NH’s mental health system that led to many community-based inpatient beds closing due to insufficient funding, the NH legislature made the fateful decision to close the Anna Philbrook Center and move children requiring that level of psychiatric care to a unit at NH Hospital – the state’s facility for adults. By 2012, emergency department boarding had come to NH – where it continues to this day.
NH’s work to recover from past catastrophic cuts has taken years. Mission Zero is a key part of the work to restore what was once considered one of the best mental health systems in the country. The proposed House budget has the potential to set us back more than a decade, eroding a critical system of care.
Every one of us, every family, is but one crisis away from needing to utilize these services. The cost of these proposed cuts would be borne by Granite Staters and their families when they are at their most vulnerable.
NAMI New Hampshire calls upon every Granite Stater to contact their representatives and urge them to pass a budget that continues the Mission Zero initiative to end ED Boarding, sustains the investments made in NH’s 10 Year Mental Health Plan, and protects Medicaid. Each of us and our loved ones deserve no less.
| 
