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Is the midst of a shaky recovery from the state’s worst economic turndown in modern history the right time to take on nearly a half-billion dollars in additional public debt – without the public’s OK? No.
There are many reasons a person may become homeless. Clearly job loss, addiction, domestic violence, release from prison, mental illness, physical disability, and discharge from mental institutions can all result in homelessness. But all homeless persons have one thing in common – they are poor and have no other resources available to them. It is men and women in such dire circumstances who come to the homeless shelters in Chapel Hill.
There are many reasons a person may become homeless. Clearly job loss, addiction, domestic violence, release from prison, mental illness, physical disability, and discharge from mental institutions can all result in homelessness. But all homeless persons have one thing in common – they are poor and have no other resources available to them. It is men and women in such dire circumstances who come to the homeless shelters in Chapel Hill.
The family of a young woman who died of pneumonia after seeking drug addiction treatment is suing the doctors who examined her and the facility where she went for detoxification.
RALEIGH – Dozens of people representing patients, educators and health-care providers urged House budget-writers last night to protect their programs from additional spending cuts when they draw up their state government budget for the coming year.
RALEIGH, N.C. — Senate budget-writers unveiled draft proposals Friday to eliminate more health positions then Gov. Beverly Perdue recommended in next year’s North Carolina state government spending plan, while adding back funds she sought for local mental health agencies and selling state aircraft.
Officials at East Carolina Behavioral Health are working through issues with local providers who have complained to the Pitt County Board of Commissioners, ECBH Director Roy Wilson told the board.
Wilson addressed the board Monday at its regular meeting after meeting with county officials and 15 local providers with complaints against the local mental health management entity (LME) last week.
Morganton – Gov. Beverly Perdue’s proposed state budget adds millions back to mental health.
Some of that money will go for more private mental health beds.
Law enforcement officers in Burke County have in the past spent days sitting with patients in local emergency rooms waiting for a mental health bed to become available. Most recently, Burke County deputies spent nine days at the end of March on an involuntary commitment.
Officials with Thomasville Medical Center say they need more room for psychiatric patients and have submitted an application for the state’s approval to do so.
Scott Southard, the program director of TMC’s Geriatric Behavioral Health, said the hospital recently began a certificate of need review with the Division of Health Service Review, part of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services. If the state determines the need is substantiated, the hospital will likely receive approval in a few months.
Southard said the hospital is looking to convert 10 acute care (regular) hospital beds on the hospital’s fourth floor, where the Geriatric Behavioral Health Unit is, into seven psychiatric care beds in an expansion of the GBH department. He said the hospital has the support of PBH (formerly Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare), the local management entity for the county’s mental health patients.
When state Secretary of Health and Human Services Lanier Cansler addressed the 32nd annual Legislative Breakfast for Mental Health held last Saturday at the Friday Center, he reiterated his belief that mental health care reform, which state government embarked on in 2001, has failed and that an entirely new system must be built.
Karen Dunn, executive director of Carrboro’s Club Nova, agrees in principle. But the devil, she knows, is in the details. This proposed new system is only now beginning to take shape, subject to approval by the federal government, and Dunn is hopeful it will be flexible enough to encompass a full range of critical services, including those her organization provides.
Senate Majority Leader Martin Nesbitt (D-Buncombe) says even with additional federal support, the public should expect more difficult cuts as North Carolina adjusts to a jobless recovery.
Nesbitt, who appears on “News & Views” this weekend, says despite the protracted recession he is determined to restore some of the funding to the mental health system that was slashed in the final days of last year’s budget battle.
The governor’s budget would make spending cuts to crime control agencies but adds money for measures the administration says will help keep the public safe.
The budget recommends a 2.4 percent decrease in spending for the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, which includes the Highway Patrol. However, the budget adds $4.7 million to secure federal matching funds to provide improved communications equipment to law enforcement agencies, and $600,000 more for maintenance at National Guard armories.
The Department of Correction would lose $45.5 million, a cut of about 3.4 percent, but would have a net gain of 749 jobs, primarily to open new medical and mental health facilities at Central Prison and the women’s prison in Raleigh.
Clinton resident Jenifer Campbell knows the harsh reality of addiction and all that comes with it. Having been the wife of an alcoholic, she has the mental scars to prove just how disasterous addiction can be to families.
Carolyn Zahnow hopes her new book will mean other moms won’t have to live through what she did: a child’s suicide.
Zahnow’s only child Cameron was 18 when he took his life in 2005. He had suffered from depression and drug addiction. He’d been to counseling and rehab, but as Zahnow writes on her website sometimes teens don’t know how to get themselves out of that downward spiral.
Clinton resident Jenifer Campbell knows the harsh reality of addiction and all that comes with it. Having been the wife of an alcoholic, she has the mental scars to prove just how disasterous addiction can be to families
A regional mental health organization held a briefing in Davidson County to discuss changes to the health care system and how it will impact patients, providers and overall mental health service.
With recent national healthcare reform signed in to law last month by President Barack Obama, an additional 32 million Americans are expected to be covered under the law.
PBH, (formerly Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare) presented information to concerned residents about what that means for the mental health system on a local and state level.
Cleon Currie has heard many times the complaints providers and clients have about the changes the mental health system in North Carolina has experienced — and continues to experience — as part of an ongoing overhaul.
“Everybody seems to be upset,” Currie said. However, he added, there doesn’t seem to be any local effort to make those concerns heard by those who can do something about it.
He and his colleagues at A Pathway Community Support Services LLC in Burlington want to change that. The agency, which Currie presides over and which provides community support teams to adults in crisis situations as well as outpatient therapy, is organizing a mental health town hall meeting Tuesday.
Mayfield claims the test result was a “false positive” and was caused by a mixture of over-the-counter drugs and medication prescribed for sinus problems, allergies and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20100407/NASCAR/100409852#ixzz0kW3jvgs6The latest chapter in the Jeremy Mayfield v. NASCAR lawsuit was written on Tuesday, when a judge ruled the case will remain in federal court. The jurisdictional decision by U.S. District Court Judge Graham Mullen permits him to rule on disputes over discovery and on NASCAR’s motion to decide the case based on pleadings without any additional discovery.
One of the unseen consequences of mental illness is how it can isolate people. One type of program for people with mental health problems attempts to address this isolation–clubhouses. North Carolina has eight clubhouse programs. They’re places where adults with severe mental illnesses can find community while getting help. And the clubhouses have one of the best records for keeping people out of hospitals and helping them re-integrate into society.
On an afternoon in June 2008, police in Pinehurst, North Carolina, were dispatched to a white farmhouse. The town is set in an idyllic location, complete with woods, plantation houses and eight golf courses. Many of its inhabitants are retirees, so law enforcement officers generally don’t have much to do. But, in the previous months, they had repeatedly been called to this particular address. Its owner, a 31-year-old man named Joe Dwyer, had been barricading himself in his house, where he kept several pistols and a semiautomatic rifle.
Brunswick County officials want to negotiate a financing plan before agreeing to help their neighbors pay for a new mental health administration building.
How do I find treatment for drug/alcohol addiction?
New Hanover and Pender counties have already agreed to chip in for a new 20,000-square-foot building in Wilmington across from New Hanover Regional Medical center for Southeastern Center for Mental Health.
Prosecutors in the Abdullah El-Amin Shareef capital murder trial on Thursday tried to present a courtroom image of a sane man with demons: the product of a violence-filled childhood and an intensifying drug addiction.
RALEIGH, N.C. — The Coalition, a statewide group of 35 organizations and their members advocating in partnership to meet the needs of North Carolinians living with mental illness, developmental disabilities, or the disease of addiction, has announced a series of town hall meetings in March and April. The purpose is to call attention to the devastating effect the loss of state funding is having on individuals and families receiving or seeking services, organizations that provide services to people with developmental disabilities, substance abuse, or mental illness, and North Carolinians who are employed by those who provide these services.
Medical costs have risen by an annual rate of 4.73 percent since 1990 and increases at this pace threaten to drive the county and its citizens toward financial disaster.
Companies and individuals that purchase insurance also know that the premiums and out-of pocket costs are continually rising. Additionally, many people are not able to obtain health insurance for a variety of reasons — from denied coverage because of a preexisting medical condition to insurance’s lack of affordability.
State lawmakers will receive a report on the state of the mental health system Wednesday and the news is mixed at best, some improvements in the troubled system along with startling reminders of the huge problems that remain.
Maybe most disturbing of all, the report was completed before the devastating budgets made by the legislature last summer to services for the mentally ill, developmentally disabled, and people with addictions.
We hope we've helped make a difference and hope to make one for many years to come. Needless to say, your support is deeply appreciated from the heart.
Our appreciation as always for the generous support of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation.
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