First responders too often see the worst of humanity while also placing their own lives in danger. They are in pressure-cooker jobs that can exact a heavy personal toll, including career burnout, depression and suicide.
So we are encouraged by a new Illinois law, one of nearly 300 new laws that take effect Jan. 1, that requires insurers to cover mental health services for cops, firefighters, paramedics and other emergency personnel — without charging them deductibles, or requiring co-pays or co-insurance.
And the benefit is available to the spouses and partners of first responders too, as it should be, given the potential toll of a tough job on marriages and relationships.
As society places more emphasis on good mental health, first responders who are far more likely to witness or experience trauma than most of us, deserve to have barriers to mental health treatment removed.
“Our first responders have endured many hardships. One hardship they should not face is a barrier to mental health treatment,” as state Sen. Michael Hastings, who sponsored the bill, said earlier this year when it passed the Illinois Senate.
“We ask first responders to be constantly exposed to traumatic and dangerous situations to protect us,” Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart, a backer of the law, said earlier this year. “This legislation is a solid step toward helping them.”
The need for more mental health services is especially acute in Chicago, where more than a dozen Chicago police officers have died by suicide since 2018, attributable to the stresses of the job.
And before then, in 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice reported Chicago police officers had a suicide rate that was 60% higher than the rate in other police departments across the nation.
Just before taking office last year, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling said addressing the mental health of his officers would be a priority.
“We need to make sure that we have the best trained and the most well-taken-care of officers when we put them out in the community, because when these officers feel good about themselves, they feel good about their department. When they feel good about the job that they’re doing, they’ll feel good and great with the community,” he said.
New laws such as the one that starts next year help officers and other first responders in multiple ways: They’re provided with services, but the law also helps reduce stigma by reinforcing that it’s OK to seek mental health counseling.
And the public benefits, too, when emergency workers —with the awesome responsibilities they hold — are mentally healthy.
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