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CHAPEL HILL — Donna Kay Smith’s son was diagnosed with a mental illness six years ago, when he was 19. Since then, he has been hospitalized seven different times in four states.

Smith, who has worked for 25 years in human services, including a stint with the Chapel Hill Police Department’s crisis unit, describes the management of her son’s illness as “the most difficult experience of my life.” She has juggled roles as a primary care provider, career counselor and liaison to a stream of complex agencies — police, hospitals, insurance companies, psychiatrists and others.

On one occasion, her son was discharged from the hospital but still required a level of care that forced his mother to stay home from work for two weeks.

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On Wednesday, the Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force heard concerns that outpatient mental health care in our area is inadequate.

North Carolina Representative Verla Insko told members of the task force how reforms meant to streamline state and federal funding have inadvertently cut both the number and quality of mental health care providers.

Audio snippets included. Read More Here ….

RALEIGH — Four Cherry Hospital employees, including a doctor, have been placed on paid leave while authorities investigate yet another case of patient neglect at the Goldsboro mental facility.

Three temporary nurses working at the hospital through a staffing agency have also been told not to return because of their potential involvement.
The Jan. 27 incident occurred less than a week after Gov. Beverly Perdue visited the troubled hospital and issued a statement saying she would “raise the bar” to ensure patients there received quality care.

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Winston-Salem and Forsyth County have received federal grants totaling $1.64 million to pay for programs that serve the homeless.

The grants include $154,168 for two new initiatives to deal with chronic homelessness.

The grants will go to 10 agencies for specific housing and support-service programs, said Mellin Parker, the director of the city’s Housing and Neighborhood Development Department. The city will administer grants to AIDS Care Service, Bethesda Center, Experiment in Self-Reliance, Family Services, Hosanna House, Salvation Army, Samaritan Ministries, and Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Also, grants were made directly to CenterPoint Human Services and Next Step Ministries.

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A new survey by the Mental Health Association in Forsyth County provides more evidence that local mental-health care needs improvement, and the survey provides some good suggestions about how to do that. Advocates should put this survey’s recommendations to work, and they should also heed the lessons from another local study released earlier this month.

Local mental-health services have made scant progress, and may have even slipped in some areas during the past two years, according to the study of patients and providers, Richard Craver reported in Tuesday’s Journal.

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Do state mental health officials have no shame? And how can anybody in North Carolina stomach, much less tolerate, the way we are mistreating the most vulnerable of the vulnerable — children with mental illness?

The plight of the mentally ill in this state has long been known and decried. The chronic underfunding, the disastrous “reform” of the system that dismantled what worked while leaving thousands of patients without adequate care, the many abuses within the state’s psychiatric hospitals, and the transformation of our jails and prisons into the main alternatives to psychiatric facilities have all been documented

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The North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation instituted a star rating program effective Jan. 1 that designates each adult care home with a rating from zero to three stars. It is an effort to assist consumers in making informed decisions regarding care options for themselves or loved ones, according to the program’s Web site.

“If you’re considering a number of homes in your area, it may be just one piece of information that you can use to maybe help select a home,” said Jeff Horton, acting director at The North Carolina Division of Health Service Regulation. “We always encourage folks to not go solely on a rating … It’s one piece of information among many that should be used when considering a home.”

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ELIZABETHTOWN — Southeastern Carolina Cross-roads, Inc. (SCCI) will be constructed in Bladen County with its ministry serving Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, Cumberland, Duplin, Hoke, New Hanover, Pender, Robeson, Sampson and Wayne counties.

According to the N.C. Department of Health, there are about 55,000 residents in the 11 counties struggling with drug or alcohol addiction and associated mental disorders. Treatment facilities for these people without insurance or means to pay for treatment are limited in southeastern N.C. SCCI’s focus is to provide rehabilitation serves for these individuals and return them to society as a productive individual.

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On Wednesday, the Mayor’s Mental Health Task Force heard concerns that outpatient mental health care in our area is inadequate.

North Carolina Representative Verla Insko told members of the task force how reforms meant to streamline state and federal funding have inadvertently cut both the number and quality of mental health care providers.

Link to video report ….

RALEIGH, N.C. — Patient advocates are expressing concerns about mold, mildew, asbestos and a prison-like setting at the state’s old John Umstead Hospital in Butner, where children and adolescents are treated.

Meanwhile, less than a mile away, at the new $130 million Central Regional Hospital, 30 beds intended for those patients remain empty.

The new state-of-the-art mental facility, which opened last summer to adult patients from Umstead, was built with a children’s unit that also includes an indoor gym, exercise room and classrooms that are now used for additional office space.

Read more here …