We have been in crisis for years and are one ranking away from being last in the nation for treatment of adults. We rank dismally when it comes to our children as well; more than 70 percent don’t get the mental health services they need to treat depression.

Hawaii is desperate for clinicians who can prescribe psychotropic meds. Mental Health America of Hawaii supports House Bill 1072, allowing clinical psychologists with a master of science degree in psychopharmacology and board licensure to prescribe a narrow formulary of psychotropic medications.

Recognizing when there’s a problem with our mental health and asking for help are extremely difficult. We often dig in, hoping and praying that symptoms will pass and we won’t need to expose ourselves to the societal stigma and negative perceptions related to mental illness. We are afraid to hear the diagnosis and wrestle with the prospect of an added challenge in our lives. Taking that first step for help is often the most difficult part of recovering from mental illness.

It is critical that appropriate mental health care is available when people need it. When someone has the courage to seek help, we must ensure that they can get it. Imagine if your brain is betraying you and you are feeling overwhelmingly and unrelentingly sad, hopeless, panicked or hearing voices, unable to get out of bed, take care of your children or go to work. You start making calls to find a psychiatrist and are told they are not taking new patients or you must wait weeks, even months for your first appointment.

This scenario is real and taking place all over Hawaii on a daily basis. It happens most frequently in rural areas, our neighbor islands, where the physician shortage is acute.

Early intervention for mental health problems will ease the suffering of patients, mitigate harm to their relationships and employment and improve their overall prognosis and recovery. Medication is not always part of treatment. But when it is needed, it is especially important that we are able to access it as easily and quickly as possible.

The solution offered by allowing psychologists the option for prescriptive authority has been proven to be safe and effective in other states and by the Department of Defense. Prescribing psychologists will be required to have formal collaborative agreements with a primary care physician as an extra layer of safety. They will only be prescribing psychotropic medication and will not be allowed to prescribe any other kinds of medication. Prescribing psychologists will also be providing talk therapy for their patients and spending the typical 50-minute session with them. This is a great way to ensure that patients get the comprehensive treatment they need.

This solution to lack of access to mental health care has been available to Hawaii for 20 years. In that amount of time, how many of us have known people who didn’t get the help they needed when they needed it? How many times have we said, “if only he had reached out for help, I could have done something?” People are reaching out for help every day and being turned away or told to wait. Withholding this option is withholding care. Pass HB 1072 now.