Elinore McCance-Katz, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services Keynotes Mental Health Symposium

NEW YORK, NY – One day after President Donald Trump declared a national health emergency over the country’s opioid addiction crisis, Elinore McCance-Katz, assistant secretary for mental health and substance use at HHS , joined the Manhattan Institute for a keynote conversation about addiction, mental health and how treatment and services can be improved. The event took place on Friday, Oct. 27^th in midtown Manhattan.

 “Our administration has been working very hard on the opioid epidemic since the election and since the president got into office,” Dr. McCance-Katz said.

Congress passed the 21st Century Cures Act, which made resources available, “but it was our administration that put those resources into play,” she added.

Dr. McCance-Katz has been treating opioid addiction since 1990, and when asked whether people can come back from the illness, she said, “Definitely, people can recover from opioid addiction.” She continued, “People often see the worst part of the disease before it’s treated and what they don’t see is the kinds of evidence-based practices that are available that help people to get their lives back.”

Dr. McCance-Katz advocated for creating and funding certified community behavioral health centers to do outreach and have on-site providers.

She said, “We should not be reliant on jails and prisons to provide what is minimal, if any, treatment to the seriously mentally ill.”

Her conversation followed a panel discussion between mental illness treatment advocates and authors DJ Jaffe and Pete Earley, moderated by Spectrum News NY1 health reporter Erin Billups.

“It is the criminal justice system that’s running a shadow mental health system,” Jaffe said.

For more information on the event, including photos and video, click here