A lack of mental health professionals and facilities has caused police to become the first responders to the emotional needs of the city’s residents, an unhealthy situation according to experts.

Kent Treadway took his own life amid depression after Katrina, according to his wife. Tyra Treadway said her husband had been waiting for some new anti-depressant medication.

Psychiatrists say the trend is exploding post-Katrina.  In the four months after the storm, the number of suicides tripled from the same period the year before.  New Orleans Police say of the approximately 400 in-patient psychiatric beds in the parish, none have reopened and 89 percent of all psychiatrists are still gone.

Having police as the first responders to people with mental difficulties may have contributed to some deadly situations.

In December, police shot and killed a mentally ill man on St. Charles Avenue after he waved a knife at them.

And, last week, after a six hour stand-off in Algiers, police killed a schizophrenic man who was off his medicine and shooting at them with an AK-47.  According to officers, the man’s family had tried unsuccessfully to find help for him.

“When the police dept is forced to do the job that the mental health system should do, it's a lose-lose for everybody,” said Jeff Rouse of the New Orleans Forensic Center.

NUMBER OF PEOPLE NEEDING MENTAL HELP INCREASING

The Orleans Coroner's Office said that in January, they were committing an average of one person a day for mental care. At the time they said only 10 percent of those were considered violent. Now, they are committing about five people a day and say half of them are violent.

“You're paranoid, you're off your anti-psychotic medicine, you get more and more paranoid,” said Dr. Jim Arey of NOPD’s Special Operations unit. “You think everybody is out to get you, hurt you, kill you, so you then go out and get knives and guns. 

Arey said the reason so many mental patients are off medicine is there's nowhere to get it.

“In our communities, there are people with disorders who are having it very difficult to get treatment,” he said. “As a result, if they're paranoid, if their thinking is distorted, there is certainly a much higher potential for them to be violent.” 

Arey said it's the moral and legal duty of the state to bring the resources to help people heal before they get hurt.

POST-KATRINA ENVIRONMENT BREEDS PROBLEMS

For Tyra Treadway, tradition has always led her in the right direction.

She and her husband Kent, a New Orleans pediatrician, continued that journey for 33 years, raising children, taking vacations, even planting the perfect tulips. But after a spinal cord injury, he was in constant pain.

Treadway said her husband never quit working, even though the pain was constant.

“The only time that he wasn't in pain after that surgery, or when he forgot about most of that pain was when he was practicing with the kids and joking around with patients.” 

But Treadway said that after Katrina destroyed his office, damaged his house and sent his patients fleeing, he became deeply depressed.

“He tried to put on a face for me and the kids to try to make us think he was doing okay, doing better, but he wasn't.” 

After one round of anti-depressants didn't work, he got off them, and was waiting to switch to others.  

“The city was just in such horrible straights, he just realized he didn't have the strength to start all over again, to start rebuilding our house, the office, and he just gave up.”

Kent Treadway killed himself in November.

SITUATION NOT LIKELY TO IMPROVE SOON

New Orleans Police say there are only a few dozen private psychiatric beds open in the parish. However, they say no emergency rooms will accept mental patients, so for the uninsured, the only option is to let them back onto the streets without treatment.

Officers said they do take patients to other hospitals outside of the parish, but they claim they are often turned away because the workers at those hospitals say they can’t handle any more people.