Michigan’s new three-digit hotline has produced a jump in calls by people in mental health distress since it began last summer. But advocates say the next step – continued treatment for those callers – is fraught with delays because of a shortage of trained professionals.
Ted Roelofs
Ted Roelofs of Kentwood, has written extensively on healthcare as well as prison and juvenile justice reform. Roelofs spent nearly three decades at the Grand Rapids Press where he covered politics, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, rural poverty and mental illness among the homeless. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin. Reach Ted at ted.roelofs@gmail.com
Posted inMichigan Government
Long shifts, low pay, high stress: Why Michigan can’t find 911 dispatchers
Michigan emergency call centers are short staffed, some by up to 30 percent. That forces dispatchers to work punishingly long shifts, day after grueling day. Burnout is high, but the price paid by people needing emergency help can be even higher.
Posted inBusiness Watch
One year later Afghan refugees in Michigan finding jobs, still seek asylum
Roughly 1,800 Afghan refugees were settled in Michigan after the fall of Kabul a year ago. They are seeking asylum, arguing their lives would be in danger if they returned to their homeland, which is now under Taliban rule.
Posted inUrban Affairs
Rise in violent crime plagues some Michigan metros this summer
Homicides are up in Grand Rapids and Oakland County, while Detroit has been hit by a spate of mass shootings.
Posted inBusiness Watch
Rising costs make for rough roads for Michigan’s independent truckers
Soaring fuel and equipment costs are forcing some truckers out of the business, adding to supply chain woes.
Posted inMichigan Government
Michigan prison staffers quitting in droves. Will 5% raises make them stay?
Long hours, grueling work, stress and danger have caused a staffing crisis among corrections officers that Michigan and other states hope to solve with more money.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
One rural Michigan hospital averts closure, as others struggle to hold on
A literal last-day state infusion of $11-million is keeping the doors open at Sturgis Hospital, keeping it from completing its planned shutdown later in July. But red ink continues to pressure independent and other hospitals that small, rural communities depend upon.
Posted inBusiness Watch
Battle Creek chooses optimism on Kellogg, even as it explores what’s next
City officials said they were putting faith in the word of Kellogg officials that the company would not abandon Battle Creek. But the food company, which is splitting off most of its business to a headquarters in Chicago, has been shrinking its local workforce for years.
Posted inMichigan Government
Grand Rapids officer facing 2nd-degree murder charge in Patrick Lyoya shooting
Prosecutors announce the decision on Thursday following the April 4 shooting death of a Congolese immigrant following a traffic stop.
Posted inMichigan Health Watch
Suicide stalks rural Michigan
The 15 Michigan counties with the highest suicide rates from 2005 through 2020 were all rural. Experts point to isolation, job loss and lack of mental health care as key contributors to rural despair.