Monday, July 18, 2005

Mental health advocates worry about people falling through the cracks (North Carolina) Goldsboro News-Argus story - "Mental health advocates in Wayne County said Thursday they are worried some people in need of help are being forgotten because of the state's new mental health reform laws. 'This is a pretty wild time with reforms,'said Bobby Jones, president of the county's Mental Health Association. 'We've got to take a stronger role in advocacy because people are falling through the cracks.' Jones made his comments Thursday during the association's monthly board of directors meeting. The association is made up of a group of local volunteers from both the business sector and mental health profession. New state mental health laws are changing the treatment of disabled and mentally ill people by using more community-based resources and less institutionalized care. State law requires local agencies to stop providing direct services by 2007. "  
  

Simi Valley Hospital to Close Mental Health Unit, Reassign Most Workers (California) LA Times story - "Administrators of Simi Valley Hospital notified employees Friday that the facility's mental health unit would close within 60 days. Behavioral Health Services 'was projected to lose approximately a quarter of a million dollars by year's end,' hospital President Margaret R. Peterson wrote in a letter to employees and volunteers. The '32-bed unit, which has been struggling financially for the past five years, has been averaging a daily census of 10 patients, sometimes [having] as few as four patients a day.' "  
  

Resignation put stress on mental patients (Hawaii)  Honolulu Star-Bulletin story - "When state adult mental health chief Thomas Hester resigned last month, it generated fear and confusion among residents with mental illnesses about services being altered, says U.S. Magistrate Kevin Chang. 'Those feelings of fear, confusion and possible abandonment experienced by mental health consumers were unnecessary and unwarranted,' said Chang, special master over the state's mental health system. Chang, a special master for a consent decree ordering improvements in the state's mental health system, made his comments yesterday in his first public statement on the case since 2001, when Chief District Judge David Ezra appointed him to oversee the case."