Friday, January 4, 2008

NASW quoted in NBC 17 article

Closure Of Mental Hospitals Delayed
Thursday, Jan 03, 2008 - 02:48 PM Updated: 07:52 PM
RALEIGH, N.C. -- The state is delaying the closing of Dorothea Dix and John Umstead mental health hospitals by 60 days.
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"Part of what we're doing here is doing what executives should do and that's taking hard looks at the programs," said Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton said during an afternoon press conference at Dorothea Dix Hospital.
The hospitals were scheduled to close in March. Benton said the planned transition fof patients from Dix to Central Hospital will be put off from March 1 to May 1.
Benton said he intends to create new working groups of mental health professionals and advocates to review the state's treatment protocols. Patient standards, administrative guidelines, and the construction plan for Butner's new Central Hospital will all be reviewed.
Critics of the plan have argued private mental health providers are not yet in place to fill the void that would be created when the staff at Dorothea Dix Hospital is removed.
"I think we've got to get beyond wishing and make sure we've got a plan that is doable to get those community services and programs in place," Benton said.
State Rep. Verla Insko, a Chapel Hill Democrat and chair of the House Government Oversight Committee, said she was pleased Benton is slowing the transition to ensure it's executed correctly.
"I think the message is 'we want tobe sure when we close Dix,’" Insko said. "We don't want to be doing it without a clear understanding that it's going to work."
Benton also announced he is taking supervisory control of the state's 14 mental health facilities, a responsibility formerly held by the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services. Psychiatrists will receive a 5 percent raise, a move Benton said he hopes will make it easier to maintain full staff levels.
Yet the changes did nothing to satisfy North Carolina's chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, who have argued the facility restructuring will leave much of the Triangle's mentally ill population without easy access to treatment services.
"The whole sense of reform was to have services in the local community," said Advocacy Director Jack Register. "When you're in a crisis you don't need to travel five hours. It's like an emergency room, and we're not going to start placing emergency rooms a hundred miles from people's houses."

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