Mental Health Rivalry

Until a few years ago, workers in the field of mental health were neglected, underpaid and unwanted. Today they are in urgent demand all over the U.S. This goes for psychiatrists, administrators, occupational and recreational therapists, and psychiatric social workers. Items: the U.S. has 8,500 psychiatrists and 12,000 psychiatric nurses, has jobs for three times as many of each; the average state hospital is 75% understaffed in clinical psychologists and social workers. At the annual governors' conference in Chicago last week, a new fact emerged: the shortage is so bad that raids between states for psychiatric workers have become a common hazard.

Said Indiana's Governor George N. Craig: "Eventually we will have to stop this bidding against each other. There has got to be some common ground of salaries and mutual consideration . . . These interstate raids on mental-health institutions for personnel sometimes get to be like the raids to build up rival football teams."