professional news
New York State Hosts Sixth Annual Picnic for Parity
A seemingly light-hearted event of picnicking in parks across the state of New York makes a very serious statement that many people want parity now.
BY WILFRID NOEL RABY, M.D.
On May 26 those people touched by the trauma of mental illness will gather in the heart of New York City and across the state to call for an end to the disparity in insurance coverage for the treatment of mental illnesses by participating in the Picnic for Parity.
Twenty-six states have passed some form of parity legislation to date. In many of the remaining states, including New York, legislators, patients and their family members, mental health advocates, and psychiatrists are still trying to achieve parity for the treatment of mental illnesses.
The Picnic for Parity, now in its sixth year, has become a tradition for the mental health community in New York state. Designed to be a public event about mental illness, it aims to dispel the many myths that surround it, such as that it is not treatable and that the mentally ill cannot live in the community. This last myth is often drawn to a checkmate when passersby in New York City realize that they are in fact eating their lunch and chatting with people who readily discuss the fact that they have mental illness.
The Picnic for Parity is organized by a broad coalition that brings together all groups touched by mental illness: patients, families of mental health care consumers, advocates, and psychiatrists. Because of this, it has become an event for the mental health community itself, where it can meet, discuss, and mold its cohesion for the challenges ahead.
This year’s Picnic for Parity will continue to deliver the message that disparity in reimbursement for treatment means reduced access to care for mental illnesses. It will promote and defend the notion that parity means access to psychiatric treatment; access to all psychotropic medications, new and old; and continued access to treatment consistent with the chronicity of mental illness.
New York City will host the Picnic for Parity in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library, starting at noon. Other New York sites hosting a similar event include Buffalo, Albany, Binghamton, Rockland County, and Long Island City, to name only a few.
At the 1999 Picnic for Parity, 10,000 people across the state voiced their request for parity for the treatment of mental illnesses.
More information about the Picnic for Parity or how to organize one in your area can be obtained by calling (212) 989-8460.
Dr. Raby is vice president and treasurer of the National Picnic for Parity Inc.