Wilson Medical’s Medicare funding jeopardized

Alleged attacker diagosed with bipolar disorder.

Wilson Medical Hospital could lose its Medicare certification by March 27 if it doesn’t implement a plan of action in response to a violent episode in the emergency room on Feb. 18.

State investigators have been at the hospital since Tuesday looking over the hospital’s operations and other facilities they run, said Jim Jones, state spokesperson for the Division of Health Services Regulations. Read the rest of this entry

RALEIGH — A debate is under way in North Carolina over health insurance coverage for children with autism, and the issue turns on whether the therapy is considered educational or medical.

The argument, presented Thursday in a legislative study commission, is at the heart of a proposed bill that would require health insurers to cover behavioral therapy and other treatments for children with autism, a neurological disorder marked by varying degrees of problems communicating and forming bonds with others.

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MORGANTON – After the jury returned a mixture of verdicts regarding four criminal charges against her, Joyce Smith Nelson said she was sorry for injuring Burke County SWAT team member and investigator Martin Lawing.

“Yes, I do wish it had never happened,” Nelson said. She said she hopes the court’s sentence will help her cope with mental illness that was her defense during the trial.

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GREENSBORO — A suicidal suspect was shot by up to five police officers after raising a handgun at authorities following a three-hour standoff this morning, police Chief Tim Bellamy said.

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Even as Gastonia Police told Lorri Moss everyone else had given up on finding her boyfriend alive, she said she never lost her faith.  (See related story)

But almost three months to the day after she had reported Keith Raymond “Poindexter” Whitworth missing, Moss received news Wednesday that she had hoped never to hear.

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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.

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Video Report:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — On a bitterly cold night in January, James Sims would meet his destiny.

“I see a fire truck going with its lights and my first thought is, ‘This can’t be good,’” said Brian Sims, James’ brother.

James Sims, 48, grew up in Union County in a family of five brothers, including Brian and Lou.  His mother, Eline Thoresbury, kept them in church and away from trouble.

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ASHEVILLE — Desiree Roberts and her colleagues spent this week telling dozens of mentally ill patients in Madison County they would have to find another place to get care.

Patton Counseling notified its 17 employees on Monday that they would be furloughed on Tuesday, essentially suspending services for hundreds of clients in Madison and Buncombe counties.

“They don’t know what they are going to do,” Roberts, a support specialist, said of her clients. “We should have had 30 days notice to get these clients transitioned to somebody else. This is unethical to do this.”

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The wife of Abdullah El-Amin Shareef, occasionally breaking down and weeping, testified Wednesday in his capital murder trial that she saw a dramatic change in his behavior as early as August 2002.

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Myrna Miller Wellons, 40, a North Carolina women’s rights and social welfare champion, died Monday from a catastrophic stroke.

At her death, she was president-elect of the Board for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), North Carolina Chapter, vice-chair of the state’s Diabetes Advisory Council, and a board member of the Mental Health Association of North Carolina.

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The final person to plead guilty in the separate murders of a mentally disabled Harrells man and a Duplin County cab driver in 2007 has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison.

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MORGANTON, NC – The jury in the trial of a woman accused of shooting a law enforcement officer began deliberations Wednesday, but was unable to reach a verdict by the end of the day.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Kincaid dismissed the jury shortly after 4:30 p.m. after the jury indicated it was unlikely to reach a verdict by 5 p.m.

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Charlotte-Mecklenburg police have launched an Internal Affairs investigation into the way an officer handled the case of a homeless man who died of exposure in January.

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For 35 years, Fred Roberts has worked at the building at 717 N. Park Avenue in Burlington.

In those years, the mentally disabled 55-year-old has done a little bit of everything – from making deliveries and doing janitorial work to working in an assembly line. The pay is not much, but the fact that he’s working is more than enough.

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Thursday, March 4, p.m.

Area residents with mental health issues, developmental disabilities or substance abuse problems who are experiencing a crisis will soon have somewhere to go for immediate and specialized help.

A Crisis Services Center, operated by Coastal Carolina Neuropsychiatric Center and Onslow Carteret Behavioral Health Services, opened Monday at 215 Memorial Drive in Jacksonville, the previous site of OCBH’s central access center.

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In a local mental-health arena where separating facts from impassioned opinions is a constant challenge, Forsyth Futures wants to use data to spur more collaboration and improve quality of care.

Doris Paez, an associate director with Forsyth Futures, is conducting interviews with officials with at least 19 groups representing the county government, school system and other agencies, local and state advocacy groups, for-profit and nonprofit service providers, managing entities and health-care systems.

The nonprofit group expects to release the study on April 21.

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The freeing of inmate Gregory Taylor wasn’t North Carolina’s sole step recently toward providing some long-denied justice. Charmaine Fuller Cooper was chosen last week as the first executive director of the N.C. Justice for Victims of Sterilization Foundation.

Her appointment didn’t get nearly the attention of Taylor’s release, but it too was a long time coming. The state’s sterilization of thousands of mental patients, now properly viewed with shame, was carried out between 1933 and 1973. Then-Gov. Mike Easley apologized for the state’s role in 2002. Last summer the legislature appropriated $250,000 to start the foundation.

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  The homeless population in Catawba County increased 12 percent from last year, according to the Housing Visions Continuum of Care.

    The organization conducted a homeless count Jan. 27 at various locations throughout the county. People who attended the count received backpacks filled with donated food and other supplies.

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MORGANTON – The defense team of the woman on trial for the shooting of a law enforcement officer on Dec. 11, 2007, presented and rested its case Monday.

Joyce Smith Nelson, 62, has pleaded not guilty by temporary insanity to attempted first-degree murder, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury, assault on a law enforcement officer with a firearm and discharging a weapon into occupied property.

Burke County SWAT team member Martin Lawing was shot in the neck during the stand-off. He remains paralyzed from the chest down.

Nelson’s family members spoke of her history of mental illness, and expert medical witnesses outlined the history of her mental illness, which stretched back to 1979.

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WINTERVILLE — Sandra Buckman is tired of seeing her daughter lose services and lose faith in the state’s system that is supposed to be in place to support her.
Buckman’s daughter has Down syndrome, and her services have changed significantly during the last few years as a result of mental health reform in North Carolina, the economic downturn and service cuts. So she’s speaking out.

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A 23-year-old Gastonia man charged with raping a young woman in her home last year was deemed too mentally incompetent to stand trial Monday.

In January, Gaston County public defender Samantha Reichbach submitted an order requesting a mental competency review for Darrell Matthew Gore, of 2418 Rogers Avenue. Reichbach was appointed to represent Gore, who is charged with second-degree rape and first-degree burglary for an incident that occurred just after 10:30 p.m. Nov. 24.

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What happened: The board committed $180,000 for design of a revamped and reopened inpatient mental health facility in Erwin. The county, the town of Erwin and Sandhills Mental Health are applying jointly for grants to cover the $2 million cost of reopening the 16-bed facility at the shuttered Good Hope Hospital in Erwin.

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Why are those people from South Carolina housed in North Carolina adult care homes? Some of them couldn’t tell you.

“Why am I here?” “How did I get here?” and “I want to go home,” are some of the things South Carolinians have been heard to say, Barbara Hinshaw, an ombudsman at Land-of-Sky Regional Council, told Buncombe County commissioners.

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The Buncombe County Department of Health began scaling back the centers last year. The nurse practitioner position was reduced to part-time, and the centers also lost their mental health therapists.

ASHEVILLE — When Mikaela Bartow wasn’t feeling well one recent morning, the sixth-grader visited the health center at Erwin Middle School.

Health center workers were able to do a test for strep throat, get the results back right away and call in a prescription that would be waiting for Mikaela’s mom.

“It’s wonderful,” said Mikaela’s mom Christie Bartow, who had been trying all day to reach the doctor. “She (Mikaela) has seen these wonderful women (at the health center), and they’ve already got her medicine at the store.

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