Medicaid is the fastest growing program in the state’s budget and is likely to hold that spot over the next two decades, according to a new report.

The North Carolina Center for Public Policy reports that Medicaid spending grew more than 9 percent from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2009, costing a total of $3.2 billion in the year ending June 30, 2009. That accounted for 15 percent of the total state budget, according to the report.

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Your Jan. 27 article on Joshua Stewart, a 13-year-old boy with autism who had been camped out for eight days, waiting for a much-needed bed in a mental health hospital, highlighted the effects of the devastating budget cuts our beleaguered mental health system has undergone.

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Elizabeth City police officers Tasered a man at Albemarle Hospital Sunday after he resisted officers’ attempts to restrain him.

According to Sgt. Wade Brite, the man, who reportedly is homeless, was under a 24-hour hold at Albemarle District Jail before being involuntarily committed to a mental health facility.

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U.S. Department of Justice officials filed late Thursday for immediate relief to install a monitor to help protect patients in seven state-run mental hospitals, officials said Friday.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a motion to appoint an overseer to set binding targets and timetables to reduce the number of patients and expanding community-based services to protect confined individuals “from the imminent and serious threat of harm to their lives, health and safety.”

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There was no escaping the tragic irony of the story on the radio that rainy morning last week as I drove down Interstate 40 to Raleigh. The newscaster reported a 13-year-old Harnett County boy had been killed by deputies outside a convenience story about 2:30 a.m. two days before.

Details about the death of eight-grader Joseph Wheeler were still emerging, but early news reports painted a picture of a troubled kid who made posts on his MySpace page three days earlier indicating he was sad and suicidal. “Death will come shortly for the next person who messes with me in the next week,” one of the posts said.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolinians who cannot afford their prescription medicines can now get them for free, Attorney General Roy Cooper announced Wednesday.

A pilot program that began last March to give low-income residents free acc

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The mother of a Calabash man who died two years in the Brunswick County Jail is suing the sheriff’s office.

Beverly Vaught sued the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office and three deputies in U.S. District Court on Friday, claiming they did not follow county procedures the night of her son’s death.

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The state’s approval of a psychiatric emergency department for Winston-Salem is a good step toward correcting the many problems created by the failed overhaul of North Carolina’s mental-health-care system. Given that mental patients have waited for hours, even days, for treatment in conventional emergency rooms in our area, this emergency department can’t open soon enough.

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Joshua Stewart, 13 and with an IQ of 36, didn’t really understand what he was doing that day, Jan. 18, when he pulled his mother’s hair and punched her in the head and then threw his little brother across the room. Joshua is severely autistic, and in the days before he grew some and got stronger, his mother, Salima Mabry, could control him. But no more.

And that’s why, desperate for help, she took Joshua to the Wake County Crisis Assessment unit for folks with mental illness. There they stayed for days, in a room with no bed, no television and one window. Clothes were kept on plastic bags on the floor. Mabry would clean up her son by sponging him off.

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I am a parent of a mentally ill child, and my heart aches for Joshua’s mom. Caring for a disabled child takes a tremendous toll on families even when they are stable. An episode of violence is especially heart-wrenching.

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Joshua Stewart’s mom waited eight days and counting for placement for her autistic son.

She’s a rarity, as most moms would have jumped ship a long time ago.

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BY MICHAEL BIESECKER – STAFF WRITER
RALEIGH — Salima Mabry watched over her son Tuesday as he slept awkwardly in the chair where he had spent eight days waiting for a bed in a state mental hospital.

Joshua Stewart, 13, is severely autistic and has an IQ of 36. He can only speak in short, single words, such as “Ma” or “hurt.”

He first arrived at Wake County’s Crisis and Assessment unit for people with mental illness in the back of a squad car on Jan.18 after he attacked his mother and little brother.

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Dr. Joseph LaMotte, clinical pharmacy specialist and board certified psychiatric pharmacist at the Hefner VA Medical Center, presented an update on medications titled, “New Drugs in Mental Health: Are They Better?,” at the Jan. 19 education meeting of the local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, NAMI Rowan.

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Morganton, NC – Burke Health Alliance for the Uninsured is one of four organizations that will free consulting service from Care Share Health Alliance, a resource for facilitating the development and expansion of community collaborations of care for low-income, uninsured North Carolinians.

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GREENSBORO — Every year, volunteers comb shelters, wooded areas and abandoned buildings as part of the annual “point-in-time” count of the homeless.

The survey, which takes place today, will include for the first time a count of those who are considered “precariously housed” or “imminently homeless” in Greensboro. Officials handling High Point’s count said they are not adding the optional category to their survey this year.

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RALEIGH — There have been at least 20 reports of staff members having improper sexual contact with children in North Carolina’s youth development centers since 2004, but state investigators found no evidence that any claims of abuse were true.

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An older story on State Rep. Carolyn Justus’s decision not to run for a fifth term this year. Justus is a member of the Legislature’s Oversight Committee on MH/DD/SAS.

Justus, a Dana Republican, represents most of Henderson County in the House. She plans to finish her term.

In a news release she sent Thursday, Justus thanked voters and looked back on some of her accomplishments, including a planned indoor firing range for the Justice Academy and a law requiring disclosure of information when juvenile prisoners escape.

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To The Editor: Although I am not a constituent of Carolyn Justus, I want to add my high praise for her constant and staunch support of the consumers of mental health services and our loved ones in this community.

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ASHEVILLE — Sisters of Mercy of North Carolina has granted $75,000 to Eliada in support of the agency’s Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facility (PRTF) program. This funding is the third in a series of grants the foundation has made to expand the program, which offers high-level psychiatric care to abused, neglected, and at-risk students at the top of the acuity spectrum. The most recent grant from Sisters of Mercy brings the Foundation’s total commitment to the PRTF project to $215,000.

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Posting will resume Thursday a.m. Other advocacy efforts have briefly taken priority.

When Albert, “Bert” Bleakley retired as a refinery superintendent from Cargill, Inc. 17 years ago, he was a spry 72 years old. He could have slipped into obscurity and quietly enjoyed his retirement, but it wasn’t his style.

Instead, Bleakley continued to work as a consultant to Cargill for several more years, and began serving on the board of the Cumberland County Mental Health Center. He also became deeply involved with the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Cumberland County, a grassroots support group for people who struggle with mental illness.

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Winston-Salem, NC – The best communities set an organized course for the future, instead of letting events dictate that path for them. Forsyth Futures, an initiative that began a few years ago, could help Winston-Salem and Forsyth County join the ranks of the best.

The nonprofit group has just finished its second annual report. It tackles five issues: economic self-sufficiency, community engagement, educational success, mental and physical health, and safety. It’s a barometer of where the county stands on these issues. The findings, culled from federal, state and local sources, reflect successes and failures. The report sets the stage for problem-solving by individuals, businesses, churches and other organizations.

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FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — An internal investigation by the Fayetteville Police Department found that 911 dispatchers mishandled a November call from the home of a Fayetteville man who shot his wife and two children before he turned the gun on himself, city spokeswoman Jackie Tuckey, said in a press release issued late Friday.

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Mental-health advocates say that the quality of services in the future will be the proof of whether CenterPoint’s latest call for public input was a success.

Almost 140 people came yesterday to talk about issues involving mental health, developmental disability and substance-abuse services in what was called a “World Cafe” discussion by CenterPoint Human Services, which sponsored the meeting.

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Piedmont Behavioral Health will hold two events designed to raise awareness of homelessness in its five-county region of Davidson, Cabarrus, Rowan, Stanly and Union counties.

The first event is the Annual Homeless Point in Time Count on Wednesday

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