Hello all,

So I'm currently a student at a small upstate NY liberal-arts college, and a friend of mine has been suffering from severe depression for about ten years. She has constantly pursued treatment, but because of her rather non-supportive family, this has been hard. Making things worse were her poor reactions to some medications, where the depression was intensified or another health problem manifested. Things looked up for her when she came to college as a Math major (shes an exceptionally talented individual) but continuing issues with her insurance and a honestly appalling college mental health infrastructure, problems only got worse.

Now, I'm a senior. She has already been forced to drop out once by her depression, but has re-enrolled in an attempt to get her life back on track. However, in treatment again, she attempted to switch doctors and they refused to release her forms. She spent 14 months trying to get them, to no avail. She finally quit trying and managed to procure her records from a pharmacy. Then, the on-campus psychiatrist has lost her records twice, due to seeming incompetence. She has now been without medication for 5 months, and has switched therapists due to their effective neglect. She is failing a number of classes, and just doesn't know what to do.

To me, this seems like a failure on multiple parts. As someone who has been with her and witnessed some of these ordeals, the fault has been due to unrelentingly shitty circumstances. There have in fact been protests at our college because of the lack of mental health facilities. She seems to have lost all hope of figuring out what to do, is completely overwhelmed, and honestly completely desperate.

As one of her good friends, is there anything I could do to help from a legal standpoint?