The Hispanic Population and Mental Illness

Many Hispanics depend on their family, the Hispanic community, and their churches for help with health crises.  Hispanics with mental illness often go without professional mental health treatment Because of cultural differences.


Studies have shown that older Hispanic adults and youth are vulnerable to mental disorders due to the stress of immigration and learning to live in a culturally different environment. Many older Hispanic Americans find it difficult to adjust to the new society. Their traditional values and beliefs are at odds with the new culture, have to cross the language barriers and depend on family for care.

 Younger Hispanics also have been found to be at risk for higher levels of emotional distress because of the pressures to rapidly adapt to the new culture as well as inequality, poverty, and discrimination.

  The have trouble relating to their new mor3e3s of society yet aqdhe3re to the traditional values held by their parents.

Lack of access to mental health services is serious problem in the Hispanic community. Hispanic Americans use mental-health services far less than other ethnic and racial groups. They are also uninsured in America limiting access to care.  The lack of interpreters and bilingual health care providers can interfere with appropriate evaluation, treatment, and emergency response.

 Some Hispanics have different attitudes about seeking mental health services, and may feel highly stigmatized for asking for help.  Affected individuals may not recognize their symptoms as those that require the attention of mental health specialists.

Mental health services need to be receptive to the cultural needs of Hispanics; and also bridge the language barriers. With proper care and treatment most mental illneswses can be controlled.

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The Severly Mentally Ill and The Government

Long-term service needed by chronically disabled people to carry out activities of daily life have traditionally been viewed as targeted to the elderly. However, these services are needed also by persons with cognitive or mental impairment from a severe mental illness.

At the present time long term hospitalization is restricted by age; if you are under 21 or 65 and older there you can take advantage of the state’s Medicaid assistance and get the help you need with long term hospitalization in state hospitals. However, there are people with severe chronic mental illnesses that need the time to be stabilized on proper medication. Sometimes for non responsive people the time needed to be stabilized and t5o be able to function in society is lo0nger than 30 or 90 days.  Medication is the only option for severe mental disorders like Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. 

That such services may also be needed by younger persons with disabilities, including not only individuals with physical disabilities but also persons with cognitive or mental impairments due to mental retardation and other developmental disabilities, traumatic brain injury, or severe mental illness. Currently people with physically disorders are covered by Medicaid but for the mentally ill there is no such provision in the laws of Medicaid.  The widespread closure of the state hospitals has added to the discrimination of the mentally ill.

Widespread homelessness among mentally ill New Yorkers became a fact of life in the 1980s due to the failure of policy makers to create adequate community-based care for mentally ill people released from long-term hospitalizations. Deinstitulization has become a failure of the government to give its’ citizens basic human rights.  It did not create the promise of programs to provide psychiatrically disabled New Yorkers with whatever assistance they need to move from the streets to independent living and employment. The goal was to give clients the tools they need to live more and more independently. It unsuccessfully provided the necessary aid to it’s’ citizens and fellow man.

Indigent persons who need treatment in a hospital can count on Medicaid to pay for diseases of the heart, liver, blood and most physical body organs. Medicaid will not cover the individual if he or she is between the ages of 21 and 65 and has a disease in their brain and needs care in a psychiatric hospital. The Federal government's IMD Exclusion prohibits Medicaid from covering any treatment in state and private psychiatric hospitals and other IMDs. To view the brain the organ the body needs to survive is a travesty and a tragedy and totally biased and discrimination of the highest degree. The mentally ill are people you may know it may even be a family member mental illness does not discriminate it can strike anyone any age any nationality.

Medicaid's denial of coverage results in homelessness, incarceration, victimization and even death for many people who are so ill they are unable to care for themselves. These people desperately need aid to conquer their diseases contact you state Medicaid office, call your congressman appeal to the government to repeal the IMD exclusion law which is outdated, a total failure and prejudice taken to the extreme.