Bode Miller is considered the most decorated alpine skier of all time, and now he’s shifting his focus post-retirement to a cause the entire country can relate to: mental health.
The former Olympian in collaboration with The Community Foundation, presented the documentary “The Paradise Paradox” at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College on Wednesday night.
The film covered the difficulties of seeking mental health services in mountain towns, as well as the mental health issues people in mountain towns face.
It covered stories from Winter Park and Eagle County in Colorado, as well as Crowley Lake, California. Such stories included former professional snowboarder Ben Lynch’s death by suicide.
Isolation, economic struggles and a lack of resources were areas of concern the film highlighted. According to a medical journal released by University of Colorado Boulder in 2020, mountain and rural communities, ski towns specifically, have significantly higher rates of suicide compared to the national average 14 per 100,000 people.
“During my career, I’ve been able to identify weaknesses, challenges, problems, and it's one thing to sit there and like to point out problems, but it's a different task and a different role to try to find a solution or drive solutions,” Miller said about making the film.
A forum was held on Thursday to discuss the state of mental health in La Plata County based on the topics discussed in “The Paradise Paradox.”
A panel comprised of Durango Police Chief Bob Brammar, Axis Health System Director of Crisis Services Molly Rodriguez, San Juan Basin Public Health Thriving Communities Manager Katie Maloney, The Hive Executive Director Kelsie Borland, Mercy Hospital Chief Executive Officer Brandon Mencini and Miller answered residents’ questions.
About 30 people attended the event. Some of them shared their perspectives on the state of mental health in the county.
One of the issues presented during the forum was the lack of mental health and drug rehabilitation facilities in the county. This has forced those seeking help to travel as far away as Grand Junction or Denver to seek treatment.
Mencini said a needs assessment for mental health services was conducted on behalf of the SouthWEST Opioid Response District. That analysis determined the community needs 16-20 in-patient beds.
“As an interim solution we work with Durango Fire to ship patients everywhere in the state and unfortunately, there’s just not enough behavioral health beds,” Mencini said.
The hospital currently sends patients to Johnstown, about 50 miles north of Denver.
“Bottom line is we definitely need inpatient psychiatric beds, where I found the solution is working with the Southwest opiate reduction work group where we're working with some congressionally directed dollars coming to our community,” Mencini said.
During a later portion of the forum, Rodriguez presented economic instability as another issue that causes mental health concerns in La Plata County.
“Durango has a very significant breadth of disparity between socioeconomic statuses, and access, meaning access to health care systems, but also opportunity,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez furthered this point by saying that people often do not want to disclose how they’re feeling when they are struggling with finances or housing.
Miller later said in an interview that this a problem across the country and that it’s heavily exacerbated in small mountain towns.
“Our suicide prevention program in 2017, we were identified as one of six high priority counties across the state of Colorado for suicide intervention. At that time, we had seen a high number of losses to suicide,” said Maloney.
Maloney oversees San Juan Basin Public Health’s youth substance abuse prevention program, tobacco education program and suicide prevention program.
She said feeling disconnected is a huge risk factor for people who are having mental health issues, something Miller’s documentary highlighted.
Miller shared his frustration with the federal government’s lack of commitment to health care, which he feels should be the country’s top priority.
“We're a country founded by the people, and our government agencies seem to have their priorities all (expletive) up right now,” Miller said. “The priorities need to be health and wellness of the people, which breaks down into education resources, food supply, quality of food, quality of health care, and that doesn't seem like it's even on their radar.”
He said while government entities and nonprofits in Eagle County were able to come together and develop programming for mental health, it isn’t always that easy for different counties throughout the state.
“The problem is there's a lot of disparate efforts, right? It's a human attribute that we want to try to help so you'll see a lot of people try but they're not pulling in the same direction,” Miller said.
tbrown@durangoherald.com
(This story has updated with a correction to a data point on in-patient beds. The 16-20 beds were in reference to a mental health service needs assessment, not 16-20 beds that Mercy Hospital can allocate for inpatient mental health or rehabilitation purposes.)
