The 24/7 Uvalde hotline to support the community has confused one woman who is very concerned for survivors
After the May 24th shooting massacre at Uvalde’s Robb Elementary Gregg Abbott pledged an “abundance of mental health services” for “anyone in the community who needs it” also stating the services would be FREE. In Uvalde only 1 in 4 residents are insured. Abbott told the community to ask for these services through the hotline: 888-690-0799.
A community where healthcare is few and far between for residents this is a huge order. Texas ranks very last for access to mental health services (2022 State of Mental Health in America report).
The stand up of these free mental health services for Uvalde has met obstacles and hurdles along the way. Residents are low income and transportation is not in abundance, some need help getting from place to place while others will not ask for the help as in ‘therapy’. The stigma is still there no matter the depth of pains needing it so badly.
Haunted By Ringing Phones
Eulalio “Lalo” Diaz told NBC News he still hears the rings of phones from the backpacks of the slain children in Room 112 and from the desk phone of Irma Garcia, their teacher.
Families, parents were calling over and over ringing the phones of their children at school hoping for an answer. Eulalio knew they wouldn’t receive an answer and stated ‘that hit me very hard’.
Diaz became the person to identify the dead and inform the parents.
After the shooting days passed, time did not stop. Uvalde resident Monica Munoz Martinez told NBC News some families had not been contacted about counseling so she decided to work to line up the calls for others in need remembering that Abbott promised the hotline would provide FREE services. It did not.
Martinez stated, “It was not helpful for me.” Martinez is a historian, author and professor at UTSA also shared she was bounced around from phone line to phone line and eventually told to contact her own insurance company for referrals to therapists but warned that she would have to pay for individual counseling.
A mess in the beginning, yet now settling into some sort of common sense, Diaz said, “There now seems to be progress in getting help in place for people who seek it. He believes it’s a mistake to put the resiliency center in a building off Main Street, which offers very little privacy.
Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez’ district includes Uvalde, he shared with NBC, “What the families have been telling me is they don’t want to see one therapist one week, a different one the following and another one yet maybe the next week,” he said. “So, they are having trouble with appointments, with continuity and that’s very, very important, especially when we are talking about young children.”
Sen. Gutierrez explained he asked Abbott for $2 million for the community to have access to a free community clinic to provide crisis care and has yet to hear back.
Where is Abbott?
