On Friday, Oct. 10, the United States Department of Health and Human Services reportedly cut thousands of federal employees. Among these agencies is the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
SAMHSA is a national agency that specializes in coordinating awareness and support for mental health across the country. It works in creating grants and gives money towards both mental health research and charity initiatives. It is also responsible for operating the 988 Suicide Prevention Hotline.
SAMHSA was also the administration that pushed for ease of access to naloxone, which is sold under the name Narcan, a medicine typically used in response to opioid overdose. This push has saved lives and has created a higher standard for action against drug overdose.
On Oct. 10, many federal employees received a notice of “reduction in force,” meaning that multiple positions were terminated and that they will no longer be working for their specified agency. This was also not the first time SAMHSA received cutting of its staff. At the beginning of this year, SAMHSA started with approximately 900 employees. In the spring, the Department of Health cut nearly a third of SAMHSA’s staff. This most recent cut leaves SAMHSA with around half the staff it once had. Given the extensive cuts, the ability of SAMHSA to create grants could be in jeopardy.
In response to this notion, Rachel Winograd, a psychologist at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, said these grants “are the backbone of behavioral health in this country.”
Reduction in these grants can directly decrease the efficiency of the aforementioned charity organizations, resulting in a decrease in the well-being of the people the charity supports, especially of those in rural or marginalized communities.
These changes could also specifically hinder the progress of reducing drug overdose rates that SAMHSA worked to achieve.
When asked about the recent cuts, Andrew Nixon, the Department of Health director of communications, claims that these cuts are due to the current government shutdown. Nixon also said that the department “continues to close wasteful and duplicative entities, including those that are at odds with the Trump administration’s Make America Healthy Again agenda.”
The Department of Health has also gone on record saying that their plan is to merge the smaller departments into the greater Administration for a Healthy America.
This could risk the nation’s health even more by decreasing department specialization and efficiency.
Along with SAMHSA, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) also received massive employee termination.
The decrease in staff could directly decrease the amount of grants made and reversals of drug overdoses across the country.
These changes are likely to have severe consequences on the liveliness and well-being of the U.S. population.