State Rep. Haraz Ghanbari has delivered too many eulogies for first responders.
These public servants didn’t die in the line of duty. They died because of post-traumatic stress injuries sustained from the horrors they saw on the job.
And for years, Ohio did nothing to pay for help.
In fact, it took more than a decade for firefighters, police officers, EMS personnel and other first responders to convince state leaders that Ohio should fund treating post-traumatic stress injuries without an accompanying physical injury − and release the money to pay for it.
Over those years, first responders fought municipal employers and business groups worried about ballooning costs. They argued with lawmakers who didn’t understand the seriousness of mental health. They tried to get the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation to handle claims like other workplace injuries, but instead settled for a separate fund.
On June 10, legislators finally approved a plan to release $40 million to first responders in need of PTSI treatment.
“When the sirens stop, and the radio goes silent, too many are left alone with what they saw, with what they heard, what they could not change and what they can never forget,” said Ghanbari, a Perrysburg Republican, in an impassioned speech on the House floor. “Some wounds are buried so deeply by the time that others see them, it may already be too late.”
There’s still work to do. The Ohio Department of Behavioral Health must set up a mechanism to deliver the money − up to $50,000 per person − to first responders in need. Lawmakers also want a dedicated funding stream to ensure the program doesn’t run dry.
But it’s a critical start after years of inaction.
“It just shattered me every time I saw a suicide being reported, and here we were just doing very little, if anything, to prevent those from happening,” said Mike Weinman, the longtime director of government affairs for the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio. “There are people out there who need help.”
How first responders fought for PTSI treatment
Shortly after state Sen. Tom Patton took office in 2003, a lobbyist with the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters named Jim Carney approached him with data about the seriousness of PTSI, sometimes labeled as post-traumatic stress disorder, among first responders.
Patton, R-Strongsville, took up the cause. He’s the son and father of police officers. Patton’s son died in the line of duty in 2010 after collapsing while chasing a suspect.
For years, Patton and Carney pushed to have PTSI covered through the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation. They faced staunch opposition from groups worried about the cost − one estimate put it at $70 million per year − and about a slippery slope to other conditions.
“The Ohio Chamber’s had a longstanding position that an eligible worker’s compensation injury requires a physical injury and we expressed those concerns to lawmakers,” said Kevin Shimp, a lobbyist for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce.
So, they came up with an alternative.
In 2020, lawmakers passed House Bill 308, which set up the State Post-Traumatic Stress Fund, in a bipartisan vote. Rather than pay for treatment through the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, the fund would pay for eligible first responders’ lost wage compensation, medical benefits and administrative costs. The new law also protected first responders from being fired or penalized for disclosing PTSI.
The changes were heralded as a major victory, but the fund had no dedicated funding source and no one to administer it. Once again, first responders weren’t getting the help they needed.
“It sat dormant,” said Jon Harvey, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters. “Not to give anybody a free pass, but I think what a lot of the legislators thought at the time was ‘OK, we got this done.’ Here we are five, six years later, and they’re learning this wasn’t done.”
It would take five years before Ohio lawmakers allocated $40 million in state taxpayer dollars to the fund. The one-time state taxpayer money was folded into an unrelated bill about athletes’ name, image and likeness benefits. The Ohio Chamber of Commerce and Ohio Business Roundtable worked with the FOP and professional firefighters on this solution.
But without someone to administer the program, the money still couldn’t be spent.
The final push
In early June, Ohio lawmakers were in a frenzied state to finish dozens of bills before taking a five-month break. Policies were being thrown into other bills like Russian nesting dolls. That’s how language about how the Ohio Department of Behavioral Health would administer PTSI treatment funding for first responders was added to a 100-plus page spending bill.
At the 11th hour, it almost didn’t happen. Some lawmakers wanted to wait until the post-election “lame duck” session. Patton, Ghanbari and Rep. Cindy Abrams, a former Cincinnati police officer, in particular, pushed for the money to be released sooner, Harvey said.
“We did run into some last-minute issues with the Senate, but ultimately, they came around,” Weinman said.
The bill passed with bipartisan support, and Gov. Mike DeWine signed it into law. Rep. Sean Patrick Brennan, D-Parma, advocated for covering treatment in honor of Parma Police Officer Kandice Straub, who died by suicide after becoming the city’s first female SWAT team member.
“The loss of Kandice Straub broke hearts across our state and should have galvanized all of us to act,” Brennan said. “Too many first responders suffer in silence, and too many families grieve alone.”
Carney, the firefighter who first brought the issue to Patton, never saw the victory. He died in 2022, and Patton spoke at his wake.
“Jim Carney was a hero,” Patton told the statehouse bureau. “If I’m the guy that started the PTSD work, it was only because I had Capt. Jim Carney at my side.”
Why it matters
First responders face harrowing sights and must make split-second decisions with life-or-death stakes.
“The facts are, the average person sees one to three traumatic things in your life. The average first responder sees nine in a month,” Patton said.
Since 2020, 59 first responders have died by suicide in Ohio, according to data collected by First H.E.L.P., which seeks to reduce the mental health stigma among first responders. Like most suicide statistics, that’s likely an undercount.
The toll is measured in more than deaths, Harvey said. “What we see day after day after day is the toll the job takes on a person’s everyday life. We see a person’s personal life falling apart, marriages falling apart, mothers and fathers not being with their kids.”
And there’s a stigma associated with a mental health injury that isn’t always present with a physical injury. There’s no shame in going to the doctor for a broken leg, but that isn’t always the case with PTSI. But paying for treatment is an important step toward destigmatizing it, lawmakers said.
“I don’t know that this bill necessarily would have saved their lives,” Ghanbari said of his friends. “But I think it would have given them a fighting chance. It would have told them, it’s OK to not be OK.”
State government reporter Jessie Balmert can be reached at jbalmert@gannett.com or @jbalmert on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio finally funds mental health care for first responders
Reporting by Jessie Balmert, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jessie Balmert, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
