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Legislative Oversight Committe Update Committee Website | Minutes and Handouts (including Feb. 10 meeting) |
LOC AGENDA 3/10/10 and link to listen in here. Audio/Video of previous LOC meetings available for nominal fee. |
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RALEIGH — A state prison inmate with a history of mental illness smothered himself in his cell, according to an autopsy report released this week.
Johnny Lee Lewis, 55, died May 5 at Maury Correctional Institution, a 1,000-bed maximum security prison about 1.5 hours east of Raleigh.
The agency managing mental and behavioral health for this area continues to grow, and it may soon work with as many as 20 of the state’s 100 counties.
Roy Wilson, director of East Carolina Behavioral Health, told Craven County commissioners Monday that the organization that once served only Craven, Pamlico and Jones counties as Neuse Center may merge in July with 10 counties of the troubled Albemarle Mental Health Center.
Being held in mental health unit.
CARTHAGE – The man accused of killing eight people at a Carthage nursing home last year will remain in Central Prison in Raleigh.
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.
A nonprofit group would like to build Fayetteville’s first transitional housing for homeless military veterans.
RHA Health Services, based in Asheville, plans to seek government grants totaling more than $2 million to build 24 efficiency-style apartments. They would be for homeless veterans who need a variety of services, such as help with transportation, managing money and skills for living alone.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina executives said Friday that they did not ask a powerful senator to gut a law reining in escalating inmate medical costs, but e-mail records and interviews with the principals show otherwise.
On Aug. 5, the legislature passed its budget bill, which included a provision mandating that inmates treated at hospitals would be billed at the same rates as the State Health Plan for state workers and teachers. Legislators, staff, the hospital association, Blue Cross and the State Health Plan had discussed the issue on and off for weeks.
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.
Determining the most effective way of handling a mentally ill patient in the emergency room has vexed law-enforcement, health-care and mental-health officials for years.
A pilot program at Forsyth Medical Center is showing promise for resolving one of the biggest obstacles — determining how long a law-enforcement officer is needed to guard a patient.
Dr Frances was the chair of the DSM-IV Task Force and of the department of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC. He is currently professor emeritus at Duke.
I have previously criticized the DSM5 process―for its unnecessary secretiveness, its risky ambitions, its disorganized methods, and its unrealistic deadlines.1-6 Now, it is finally time to evaluate the first draft of the recently posted DSM5 product (at www.DSM5.org).
RALEIGH — An employee of Dorothea Dix Hospital, a state mental hospital, was arrested Friday and charged with having sex with a female patient.
SHELBY — The second phase of Operation Medicine Cabinet in Cleveland County comes next month in Kings Mountain.
ACCES Inc. and the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Department want to help keep people safe in their homes by properly disposing of unused medications.
A former legislative leader’s under-the-radar maneuver undid a law to cut millions of dollars from the soaring cost of medical care for inmates days after it passed.
In August, the N.C. Department of Correction had a bill passed to allow the state to pay less to have inmates treated at hospitals, which were charging at nearly their highest rates. The ink on the governor’s signature was barely dry when then-Sen. Tony Rand effectively gutted the bill at the request of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina. The new law requires the department to collaborate with Blue Cross on plans to pay inmate medical claims.
Morganton, NC – I am a 51-year-old man who has been on Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) for over half my life.
I have tried different careers to further my existence. I sold real estate and tried selling life insurance, but both were taxing on my nerves and abilities to cope.
The real-estate program I attended in school was funded by the government and the funding for my continued education is also funded by the government and student loans. I am now enrolled in a well-known on-line college in order to further my education.
RALEIGH, N.C. — A disability rights advocacy group filed suit Thursday against the leaders of the state Department of Health and Human Services and a local health service provider alleging that planned cuts in funding for mental health services violate the rights of patients and inhibit their ability to live independently.
Targacept reported a net loss of $26.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2009, up from a loss of $5.4 million a year earlier, according to an earnings announcement.
Much of the loss was the result of a $16 million payment the Winston-Salem drug discovery firm made during the quarter as a license fee to the University of South Florida Research Foundation.
RALEIGH — A Sanford farmer has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Lee County alleging that sheriff’s deputies punched him, kicked him in the face, pepper sprayed him and shocked him with a Taser at least 11 times.
Steven Wayne Thomas, 35, suffered a broken jaw and lost a tooth during the April beating, which began, the suit claims, after he became mentally disoriented and asked a deputy for help.
Just before the exciting climax of The Last Lawyer, Ken Rose, the titular hero, steps down as director of the Durham-based, Indy Citizen Award-winning nonprofit Center for Death Penalty Litigation. His staff throws him an exit party, and someone asks aloud, rhetorically, “So who is Ken Rose?”
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina lacks controls to rein in prisoner medical expenses that could save the state tens of millions of dollars annually, State Auditor Beth Wood’s office said Thursday after its review said correction officials are at the mercy of outside hospitals when it comes to setting payment rates.
The fiscal control audit of prisoner medical services at the Department of Correction examined 131 of the largest payments to hospitals for individual inmates’ treatment during the second half of 2008 and found that 16 exceeded $100,000.
These days the news is full of stories about people who have “misspoken.” That means they’ve said something they probably meant, but in the harsh light of day, it doesn’t stand up to public scrutiny. In other words, it isn’t politically correct.
You’d think they’d put those politicians through a seminar about what not to say in public. There was Andre Bauer, lieutenant governor of South Carolina, saying something that was interpreted to mean that if poor people were given handouts, it would just encourage them to multiply and become an even bigger burden. Oops. It seems his grandmother had encouraged him not to feed stray animals because they would breed even more unwanted animals.
A recent book revealed that Se
It’s UNC-Duke tonight, and for one side it could be a forgettable affair, according to a new research study out today on uber-basketball fans.
Scientists at Duke came up with the idea of showing old footage of a nail-biter game between the two rivals to track the connection between emotion and memory recall. They were trying to figure out how such links could affect conditions like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
On the day Debbie Crane was fired for doing her job, and doing it well, she called a friend and asked for help getting in to see a psychiatrist. Immediately.
“I needed to talk to someone,” the deposed Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman said. “I couldn’t have made it home to Hillsborough.”
She was raw that day, raging, injured. Besides being axed, she had been called “dishonest, untruthful and insubordinate” by Gov. Mike Easley through spokesman Seth Effron.
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.
Negligence by the Charlotte Housing Authority led to an elderly woman’s 2007 death at the hands of a crack cocaine addict, a jury ruled Tuesday.
Attorneys sued the agency on behalf of the estate of Eva Dunlap Green, 63. She was strangled three years ago in her ninth-floor apartment at Charlottetown Terrace, a public housing complex for the elderly and disabled near uptown.
Her 46-year-old neighbor Kenneth Cyrus – a man attorneys said has a history of violence, drugs and mental illness – was convicted of her killing.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — The admiral in charge of Navy hospitals in the east region said Tuesday the quality of care at the hospital in North Carolina is excellent.
Rear Adm. Bob Kiser said he had “no concerns about the quality of care” at the Camp Lejeune hospital.
Public questions about the quality of mental health care at the base were raised last year by the September firing of Dr. Kernan Manion. He’s a brain trauma specialist who says he was fired after he had complained to commanders about inadequate care and weak security.
Click here to view the video of Kris Parks presentation at the NAMI Western Carolina meeting January 19. She is making presentations for a combined effort of Disability Rights North Carolina and fellow advocacy organizations concerning proposed legislation that would exempt those with a severe mental disability from the death penalty. With support from a generous grant from the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, DRNC is working both to educate our citizens about the reasons it is fair and just to exclude such persons from capital punishment and in so doing, to raise awareness about mental illness.
For more information about this initiative and to contact Kris to speak to your group or organization, click here.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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