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Shuttling patients burdens deputies
Ruth Sheehan with the Raleigh N&O uses information from a report written by NAMI Wake President, Gerry Akland to write a
front page article about the problems confronting state Sheriff's offices in transporting patients
Ruth Sheehan with the Raleigh N&O uses information from a report written by NAMI Wake President, Gerry Akland to write a
front page article about the problems confronting state Sheriff's offices in transporting patients
TRAVIS LONG - tlong@newsobserver.com
| Sister's New Journey |
Ruth Sheehnan, columnist with the Raleigh N&O, writes a great article about Louise Jordan, a NAMI Board member who is working with other
NAMI Wake members on an anti-stigma campaign which will run ads on a Raleigh CAT Bus. Louise and Gerry Akland are also working with
professionals at the UNC Neurosciences Community Mental Health Center on developing a training class for group home workers. To read the
full story, click here.
NAMI Wake members on an anti-stigma campaign which will run ads on a Raleigh CAT Bus. Louise and Gerry Akland are also working with
professionals at the UNC Neurosciences Community Mental Health Center on developing a training class for group home workers. To read the
full story, click here.
Read the letter to the Editor in the N&O or below
State’s Deficiencies
Regarding the Jan. 27 article "Eight days waiting with no bed for Joshua":
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.
Knowing how that feels, I was outraged to read that Dr. Michael Lancaster said the state was waiting to provide care, hoping that "we
could stabilize him in the crisis center where he was." How long did they plan to wait? The crisis facility is licensed as a 23-hour crisis
and assessment facility, not a treatment center. If there were beds available, why did it take eight days to transfer him?
Apparently, our state's policymakers have built a moat around our state facilities to keep the patients outside. In the short term, that
may save money, but at what long-term expense? Hospital emergency departments, shelters, jails and crisis centers are crowded with
people who need real treatment. Law officers spend days accompanying patients as they wait for beds.
The situation is getting much worse as community treatment services are slashed and the state continually reinvents its mental health
wheels.
Gerry Akland
President, National Alliance on Mental Illness Wake County
Knightdale
State’s Deficiencies
Regarding the Jan. 27 article "Eight days waiting with no bed for Joshua":
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.
Knowing how that feels, I was outraged to read that Dr. Michael Lancaster said the state was waiting to provide care, hoping that "we
could stabilize him in the crisis center where he was." How long did they plan to wait? The crisis facility is licensed as a 23-hour crisis
and assessment facility, not a treatment center. If there were beds available, why did it take eight days to transfer him?
Apparently, our state's policymakers have built a moat around our state facilities to keep the patients outside. In the short term, that
may save money, but at what long-term expense? Hospital emergency departments, shelters, jails and crisis centers are crowded with
people who need real treatment. Law officers spend days accompanying patients as they wait for beds.
The situation is getting much worse as community treatment services are slashed and the state continually reinvents its mental health
wheels.
Gerry Akland
President, National Alliance on Mental Illness Wake County
Knightdale
Published Wed, Jan 27, 2010 04:52 AM Raleigh News & Observer
Mom camps out to get spot in mental ward for son
Mom camps out to get spot in mental ward for son
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.
Read full article in N&O
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.
Read full article in N&O
BY RUTH SHEEHAN - Staff Writer
Outside a renovated red brick schoolhouse in one of Raleigh's toughest neighborhoods, patients with severe and persistent mental
illness quietly come and go. For more than two decades, the unassuming Inner-City Mental Health clinic hasdoggedly served about 150
people, most of whom live in the surrounding area. It is, by every measure, a successful and well-run clinic. Yet the county's proposed
budget for next year would shutter it for good. The county is trying to patch a $12 million to $18 million spending gap. County Manager
David Cooke has asked every department to identify 7 percent in savings. That's all fine and good.
But would closing the Inner City clinic save money in the end? Just the opposite. For the people who rely on the clinic week in, week
out, month in, month out, this would be like setting fire to a safety net. Dr. Peter Morris, medical director for Wake CountyHuman
Services, said the clinic was reluctantly targeted after all the easier cuts had been made - in training, transportation and support staff -
and the savings still came up short. "The county's in economic crisis, but these people are in great need too," Morris said. "Do I hope
the county finds a way to cut more in general services than in human services? Absolutely."
The Inner-City patients wouldn't be left without care. But after years attending a clinic where everyone knows everyone by name, they
would be transferred to already overworked staffers at one of the county's other, larger mental health facilities. David Clark, 60, said
he has been going to this clinic for mental health services for 18 or 19 years. This is where he sees a doctor, talks to a therapist, gets
his meds. "The clinic might close? I reckon I'll have to find some other place to go ...," he said, his voice trailing off uncertainly.
Advocates fear many of the regular patients will begin to drop away - and then wind up in crisis. "Once again, what's going to happen
is that the regular patients are going to get sicker and need more significant intervention," said Ann Akland of the Wake County chapter
of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
And that, the county commissioners need to remember, costs big bucks.
Consider: The Inner-City Mental Health Clinic operates on an annual budget of about $156,000, about one-thousandth of 1 percent of
the $985 million Wake County budget. That's an expenditure of about a thousand dollars per client.
Now imagine if one of those clients, traumatized by the clinic's closing, begins to miss regular appointments with his therapist. He fails to
get and take his meds. He is picked up by the police and taken toHolly Hill Hospital, which not long ago opened a wing for poor patients
served by the county.
A night's stay at Holly Hill is $625 - and the average stay at Holly Hill these days is about a week.
Makes the clinic look like a bargain, doesn't it?
ruth.sheehan@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4828
Read more: http://www.newsobserver.com/2010/03/17/392892/the-cost-of-closing-a-clinic.html?storylink=misearch#ixzz0ia1sumPd