Red Cross, Sept. 11 Fund To Fund Long-Term Psychiatric Treatment for People Directly Affected by Sept. 11

The American Red Cross and the September 11th Fund on Aug. 20 announced that they will jointly fund a program beginning this week that will pay for the cost of psychotherapy, substance abuse treatment, psychotropic drugs and possibly hospitalization for people "directly affected" by Sept. 11, the New York Times reports. The program will cover counseling and treatment for affected individuals, including victims' families; those injured in the attacks; displaced residents; those evacuated from the World Trade Center; rescue and recovery workers and their families; and children in schools close to Ground Zero and their families. The Red Cross will pay for up to 24 therapy sessions, $500 worth of psychiatric drugs and 30 days of psychiatric hospitalization, and the September 11th Fund will cover the cost of therapy and medications up to $3,000 per person. Participants may see any mental health provider they choose. The program, which will extend to people "in other states and other countries" beyond New York and Washington, D.C., will supplement private health insurance or will pay the entire cost for people without medical coverage. The joint program goes beyond Project Liberty, a federally funded program that offers free short-term crisis counseling for anyone affected by Sept. 11, because it focuses on people considered at "high risk" for depression, aggravated grief, post-traumatic stress disorder, severe anxiety and substance abuse, conditions thought to require longer treatment. Mental health experts believe that the charities' program is the "largest effort to provide free psychiatric treatment to a defined population," the Times reports. Dr. Darrel Regier, executive director of the American Psychiatric Association's Institute for Research and Education, said, "In essence, this is a rudimentary foundation of a mental health system for disasters. It's a very interesting social experiment, and it should be studied very carefully for what we can learn from this in terms of a model of disaster care." Most people eligible for coverage are not expected to use the benefit, and those who do probably will not seek the maximum extent of coverage, the Times reports. Red Cross anticipates spending $40 million over three to five years for the treatment coverage, and the September 11th Fund estimates it will spend $45 to $55 million for the individual care and training professionals on the signs and symptoms of mental illness and "traumatic stress reactions," the Times reports. Joshua Gotbaum, CEO of the September 11th Fund, said, "We know that many people affected by Sept. 11 will need some form of counseling and that many of them will not realize it for months or even years. We felt we had to design a program which would pay for therapy wherever the victims were and whenever they realized they needed it" (Goode, New York Times, 8/21).