The early report said the suspected shooter, or “person of interest” in modern police lingo, had dealt with mental health issues and had recently been two weeks in a mental health ward.

That he had mental health problems is no surprise. Well-balanced people don’t shoot up pool halls and bowling alleys. That he was released from “the system” shouldn’t have been news. But it was. And is.

By mid-day Thursday, police had upgraded the “person of interest” to “suspect” and had filed murder charges as some of the victims were identified.

Even if reports naming the shooter turn out to be wrong, they shine a spotlight on our mental health system. Last year, as I campaigned for the state Legislature, no topic resonated more with voters than mental health. People are concerned about it.

Is our system weak, or did the people working in the system drop the ball? Or some of each?

Mental health issues are part of my life. Not so much my health as that of people dear to me, though some folks question my sanity for choosing to farm. I ask myself that every so often, too.

Three cases. When I was pursuing a Naval ROTC scholarship, my mother briefed me on what to say to the psychological examiner. It was six years after my father had shot himself to death, and my mother was working toward a master’s degree in counseling, so she knew that turf.

Don’t volunteer what your father did, she said, because psychologists feel suicides are always “crazy.” But, she added, if the shrink asks, be honest. Tell exactly what happened. The shrink did, and I did. And I saw right away the change in his demeanor. Eyebrow raise, chin scratch. Leaving the interview room, I knew my chance of a naval officer career was less than nil.

Second, my late sister was a bipolar outpatient at Yale New Haven Hospital for years. (It was called manic-depressive then.) She functioned, but only with medication, self and prescribed.

Third, a man I know was looking for counseling this year to deal with anxiety and depression, which had twice pushed him off the wagon and into the bottle. I helped him look for a counselor, but four months passed before he found one who had openings and accepted MaineCare.

While these cases in my circle seem clear cut, mental health assessment is often fuzzy. You don’t need to watch many police procedurals to find scenes of a psychiatrist testifying about a person’s mental health. A pivot point for viewers is figuring whether the accused is mentally ill.

And in a subject about which we know so little — the sciences of genetics and brain chemistry are enlarging our circle of knowledge, but there is so, so much yet to learn — mistakes will happen. Way more often than we might like.

Let’s look first at Maine’s mental health system. In 2020, we had 226 psychiatrists, according to the Bureau of Licensure in Medicine. That’s one for every 5,400 Maine people. Move to psychologists. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says we have 200, or one for every 7,000 people. Finally, Maine has 4,600 licensed counselors — only 3,700 live here — one for every 350 people.

A last statistic. As best I can tell, we have about 300 psychiatric beds in four hospitals (Acadia and Dorothea Dix in Bangor, Riverview in Augusta, Spring Harbor in Westbrook). Add about 40 beds at general hospitals. So, a bed per 4,000 people, or less than half what the feds recommend.

If you follow the news, you know the demand for counseling at all levels has at least doubled since COVID-19 hit. And stories abound of people trying for a year or more for an appointment. We clearly need a bigger system. And that’s going to take more money and time than we’d like.

Given such high demand, our system is stressed. And, judging by the number of professionals and hospital beds available, I believe it was undersized to begin with.

We not only need a bigger and better system for dealing with mental health issues, we need to make sure the system works. This is not a partisan issue, but Democrats are the party of government so it is they who must make it work.

We Americans love to grouse about our experiences with bureaucracy. To me, the poster child of such tales is the case of the FBI agent in Minnesota who flagged the higher-ups when she learned that men were taking classes in how to steer an airplane, but not how to take off or land. She was ignored. Then came 9/11. Turned out some of those terrorists had trained in Minnesota.

Questions remain in this case. With mental health issues, how could he get or keep an assault weapon? Why wasn’t Maine’s “yellow flag” law used to remove his weapons temporarily? Was he rushed through the system too fast? Was he released from two weeks in a mental health ward because someone else needed a bed? Was he just sent on his way after his paperwork was done?

Laws meant to protect patient privacy will keep us from ever knowing whether people working in the system performed well or badly, fervently or routinely. But we know it didn’t prevent mass murder in Lewiston.

Bob Neal remembers that while he campaigned as being fiscally cautious, voters who spoke about mental health replied that we need to greatly improve the system. No matter the cost. Neal can be reached at [email protected].