Missouri Department of Mental Health

A recently released report from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services that analyzed the digital health of the state’s public health system says the state’s public health system needs to be more centralized — and public health agencies across the state say they agree.

From 2017 through 2023, roughly 2,680 people with developmental disabilities died under the care of the state of Missouri — on average, one person every day.

There are 418 Missourians across the state on a waiting list for a mental health bed, up from around 300 at this time last year. People are spending an average of 14 months in jail before receiving their court-ordered treatment.

EMS workers across the state are receiving training on how to give overdose victims a dose of buprenorphine, which manages cravings and withdrawal symptoms, after reviving them from an overdose with the overdose reversal drug naloxone.

The people imprisoned were supposed to receive rehabilitative mental health services that allow them to stand trial, but they have been found to languish in jails — often for months — without having been found guilty of any crime.

Missouri’s proposal to alter the way it sets rates for an at-home disability care program drew concern from the state’s federally-mandated disability-rights organization.

There are currently 253 people in Missouri jails waiting to be transferred to a state hospital for mental health treatment.

The state is moving forward to change how it calculates payment rates for its Self-Directed Supports program — a situation families say took them by surprise and that they fear could mean rates for caretakers are frozen at low levels or become unpredictable.

Legislation directs social services, mental health departments to collaborate on solutions to clients being boarded in medical and mental health facilities ‘without medical justification’

Staffing shortages at the state and local level translate to a lack of resources for hundreds of Missourians with developmental or behavioral disorders.