Posted by LostBoyinNC1 on July 29, 2002, at 18:27:09
Lately as a result of a major federal reform of the public mental health system, North Carolina has begun a "second" period of deinstitutionalisation. The first occurred back in the eighties under Reagan. Now its happening a again. North Carolina has four state mental hospitals or "institutions." None of them have good reputations, all have long, dark histories of patient abuse. In recent years, quite a few patients have died at NC state mental hospitals, under questionable circumstances. Finally NC has had enough and has decided to shut down the worst one, Dorthea Dix mental hospital in Raleigh. Dorthea Dix has been compared to a concentration camp and Ive heard it described as such by people whove been there.
Anyway, North Carolina is undergoing a total overhaul of its public mental health system. Among these changes in addition to deinstitutionalisation, many county "departments of mental health" are being shut down. The plan is that the people who rely on these public departments of mental health clinics will instead use contracted out private practice psychiatrists for their help. I personally think this is a great idea.
I believe all public mental health departments should be shut down completely. They are a drain on the taxpayer. They also do a poor job of handling the poor mentally ill. Most of them use masters degree social workers and psych nurses for diagnosis. Actual time spent with a real psychiatrist in these public clinics is dreadfully small. Instead of maintaining state, city and county mental health deparmtments and providing shoddy services to the poor, the poor and uninsured should be able to use medicaid to pay for private practice psychiatrists. This is what the current plan calls for.
Anyway in the local paper recently, some local county mental health employees who are going to lose their jobs as a result of these changes were moaning and whining about these changes. Complaining they believe many mentally ill will not receive good quality services after they are gone.I think its quite the opposite. I think quality of mental health care will go up after public departments of mental health are eliminated from the bureaucracy. Nothing can equal a relationship with a private practice psychiatrist.
I like what I see starting to happen with the NC public mental health system. North Carolina's poor needs less less of the public mental health system and more access to private practice psychiatry. However, many are mad about it here and of course many of those work in the NC public mental health bureaucracy. I could care less.
poster:LostBoyinNC1
thread:114220
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020725/msgs/114220.html