Health Ministries - Mental Health Concerns

Treatment of the Mentally Ill

Have you, your family or friends been touched by the pain of a psychiatric illness? Public news is full of incidents that can be traced to mental disorders which have not been properly diagnosed, treated or had follow-up care. We pray for the mentally ill but there is still more that we can do.

The N.C. General Assembly is back in Raleigh. There will be pressure to cut mental health care funding. Dorothea Dix Hospital property is a prime target. Please join me in sending a personal e-mail or letter to our NC Senators and Representatives. View sample letters and targeted legislators below.

Call Carolyn Corn at 851-0674, if you have comments, questions or do not have e-mail access. I can mail sample letters to you.

Sample Letters

Dear

I am chairperson of the Health Ministry Committee at First Methodist Church-Cary. Our committee is deeply concerned about care of the mentally ill in NC.

Having seen the anguish of the mentally ill, I want to do all I can to keep Mental Health care strong in NC. I am a retired psychiatric nurse with a Masters in Public Health Administration. I worked at Dorothea Dix Hospital for 18 years. At one time, I had prime responsibility for 1,200 patients on 2nd shift . My last job at Dix was Clinical Nurse II Trainer for the Adult Admissions Unit. In 1982, I proudly wore the "Save Dix" t-shirt in response to those who wanted to close Dix at that time. Governor Hunt changed the tide on this plan and had the wisdom to keep Dorothea Dix Hospital open.

I have completed reading "Plan for Closure of Dorothea Dix Hospital" from DHHS, published in November 2010. I think improvements have been made but several issues need to be in front of legislators who will be making decisions on money cuts and disbursements. Some of the issues of concern:

Recognize the role of Dorothea Dix in bringing care to the mentally ill of NC. Her goal was to care for "the least of these". Dorothea Dix Hospital is the flagship for Mental Health Care in NC. It is as important a landmark to the Dix campus as Old East, built in 1793, is to the University of N.C. For 150 years, the mission of Dorothea Dix to care for the mentally ill has been carried out in this facility. Things change but let us not forsake the weak and ill of our society. Funds for the mentally ill have decreased over the years while the numbers of the diagnosed mentally ill have risen.

Concern about Dorothea Dix property- Instead of giving it away as political favors or selling to developers, use a large portion of this land for continued care of the mentally ill. The state should be committed to keeping this valued property in the manner intended by the citizens. We need a public facility for psychiatric patients in the Capitol City. Dorothea Dix Hospital frequently accepted patients from Holly Hill, a private psychiatric hospital, once their insurance funds ran out.

Acute care for psychiatric patients can best handled efficiently and quickly by local staff trained in psychiatry. A long wait in a hospital emergency room, can be agonizing for a distressed mental patient. Then to be transported to Butner or Cherry Hospitals seems neither efficient nor compassionate to me. Community Hospitals do not have the trained staff or facility to treat acutely ill psychiatric patients.

It would save Raleigh police much time and transportation money to have a facility in Raleigh. A large number of patients come from the Raleigh area.

When Raleigh area patients are discharged, many have little money or transportation. They would be better able to find work, housing, family support and education in Raleigh, rather than Butner.

Activities and supervision are needed for patients after discharge from psychiatric hospitals. Staff of private care facilities should have training in medication management, active programming and how to deal with episodes of instability. Having properly trained psychiatric professionals to monitor and have periodic visits to these facilities is a must. In the past, we know that many Local Management Entities (LME’s) staff were not properly trained nor supervised yet were vastly over paid. Stop the Medicaid fraud.

To educators, Dix was a valuable resource for specialized training of physicians, nurses and healthcare technicians.

We realize that you face difficult decisions regarding state resources. In making decisions about State resources, we ask that you, as a leader in the State of NC, be committed to keeping this special place for a mental health treatment center, as other state leaders did in times of even greater economic hardship such as the Great Depression. They reacted with compassion for those less fortunate.

Sincerely,

Carolyn Corn

November 25, 2010

Madam Governor,

The Raleigh News & Observer published an article yesterday that announced that the U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into our struggling mental health system. To those of us who have seen our loved ones suffer as well as those who have seen the suffering as they have struggled to provide care, we welcome this investigation with open arms. From the beginning of the mental health reform, we as the advocates for those with mental illness have clearly voiced our concerns about how this was being handled by previous administrations and we have offered suggestions for improvement. This is well documented.

Recently we have raised the public awareness of what is happening with those who are struggling with their brain diseases, by providing reports about State Psychiatric Hospital Admission Delays in North Carolina: January-June 2010 and another, Prisons & Jails are North Carolina’s New Mental Hospitals (www.nami-wake.org ). Earlier this month a coalition of communities and organizations from across the state held a rally and march to the Governor’s Mansion to voice our unified concern with regards to closing Dorothea Dix Hospital. This effort resulted in support from a demographically representative cross section of the population living in North Carolina. The public understands that health care does not have to be provided in a new building. Care is provided by trained and caring professionals, like those professionals that have been serving our residents in need at Dorothea Dix Hospital. We do not need new buildings. We need more psychiatric hospital beds for those who have needs that cannot be adequately served in community hospitals. DHHS even recognized this as recently as October 29, 2009, when Renee McCoy, DHHS spokesperson said in a statement to WRAL, “because of an overall shortage of patient beds, Dix will stay open for at least three more years as an overflow unit and to house children and adolescents in need of long-term care.” The shortage of patient beds has not gone away in one year, it has grown worse.

We are sensitive to the issues of budget and financial hardship. We recognize that you face difficult decisions regarding state resources. However, we can not forget that even in better times, the funding of mental health was never adequate, and the Mental Health Trust Fund was a piggy bank used to balance previous budgets. Land that was given to the state to provide care for those with mental illness has been given to others as political favors, such as the new golf course for NC State, the Lonnie Poole Golf Course, or the Centennial Campus, or the Farmers’ Market. It is our collective position that despite the financial and political pressures to allow the land to be turned over to state offices and further NC State encroachment, or turn it into a city park, that the state be committed to keeping its valued facility in the manner the citizens of the state prefer; a mental health treatment center. In making the difficult decisions regarding the state resources for next fiscal year, remember that other state leaders had to make difficult decisions under even worse economic conditions, such as during the Great Depression. They reacted with compassion for those less fortunate, and chose to keep Dix open.

We are reaching out to you again, in hopes that you will recognize the importance of Dix for what it represents to different people in our society. To mental health advocates it is the foundation of the mental health system of North Carolina. Dorothea Dix Hospital is as important a landmark to the Dix Campus as Old East (built in 1793) is to the University of North Carolina. Today Dix is the only long term treatment facility in the state for patients with complex medical and psychological problems and the facility that is turned to when other sister hospitals need specialized care. To educators, Dix is a valued resource for training. To law enforcement it represents less time in emergency rooms waiting for psychiatric beds for those under involuntary commitment papers and less transportation costs and personnel distraction from policing our streets. To volunteers, churches and the business community it is a place to contribute and show the best parts of our citizenry. To families, it is an accessible opportunity for patient contact with nearby sources for assistance. To some patients, it is a central location to access community jobs and education from which to return to our collective state community as prepared, contributing citizens. To some Dix is a historic achievement and to others it is an important social lesson that we are hard to forget. It is not just a place. It is part of our North Carolina identity.

We are again reaching out to you to lead our state with compassion for those in need of mental health care and treatment. Keeping Dorothea Dix Hospital will demonstrate to the state and DOJ that you are serious about providing for them.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Don Crohan Gerry Akland

Psychologist, DDH President, NAMI Wake County

James Wells, M.D. add other affiliates

Psychiatrist, DDH

Target List

REPRESENTATIVES

Paul Stam Wake County
Thom Tillis Mecklenburg
Pat Hurley Randolph
Carolyn Justice New Hanover
Jeffery Barnhart Cabarrus
Leo Daughtry Johnston
Joe Hackney Orange
Marilyn Avila Wake
Harold Brubaker Randolph
John Faircloth Guilford
Jeff Collins Nash
Deborah Ross Wake
Mike Stone Lee
Nelson Dollar Wake
Jamie Boles Moore

SENATE

Josh Stein Wake
Ellie Kinnaird Orange
Austin Murphy Allran Catawba
Robert Atwater Durham
Phil Berger Guilford
Neal Hunt Wake
Richard Stevens Wake
Harry Brown Jones/Onslow
Jerry Tillman Montgomery
Louis M. Pate Jr. Wayne

Health Ministries - Mental Health Concerns

Sample Letters

Target List

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