Mental Health Panel

MENTAL-HEALTH PANEL: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton named a
panel in January to investigate problems in North Carolina's mental-health system. But none of its 32 members
are users of mental-health services or their family members."The exclusion gives the impression that individuals
with a mental illness either aren't smart enough, aren't savvy enough, aren't connected enough to sit at the
table," said David Cornwell, of N.C. Mental Hope. Cornwell sent a letter last week asking Benton to rethink the
group's membership. Eighty-nine people and assorted groups signed on.
The Facility Management Working Group is wrapping up its work, and the secretary's one-sentence reply to
Cornwell by e-mail makes a last-minute change look unlikely."Your petition has been received and will be
considered in establishing future work groups," he wrote. Through a spokesman, Benton gave a similar response
to questions about the petition. Benton, tapped last year to lead the health department through Gov. Mike
Easley's last year in office, is likely to leave before a new governor takes over in January. Benton was confronted
with a limited window of time to turn input from the public into a budget request to Easley, work group member
Robin Huffman said."I think it's just real easy to criticize a work group that doesn't have every group
represented," said Huffman, executive director of the N.C. Psychiatric Association.
The group also lacks members from western North Carolina, where providers are scarce in some rural parts and
whose residents are served by a hospital in Morganton that lost its federal certification last year over a patient
death and injury. Nearly half of the petition's signers come from the region. Debra Dihoff, state director of the
National Alliance on Mental Illness and a panel member, also said the panel was chosen with an eye toward
moving quickly to tackle a crisis. Dihoff was one of the people who signed Cornwell's letter."I suspect (Benton)
appointed me to represent the family and consumer voices," she said."I do my darnedest, but it's not really the
same." (Jordan Schrader, ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES, 4/04/08).