Feds launch probe of N.C. mental health system

Published Wed, Nov 24, 2010 01:39 PM
Modified Wed, Nov 24, 2010 01:48 PM


RALEIGH The U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal investigation into
North Carolina's struggling mental health system, the first step in a
process that could trigger a federal edict for sweeping reform.

The probe is the result of a complaint filed in July by the advocacy group
Disability Rights North Carolina, which contends that the state is
violating
the Americans With Disabilities Act for failing to provide proper housing
for people with mental illness.

Nearly a decade after the state Department of Health and Human Services
closed thousands of beds in government-run psychiatric hospitals as part
of
a reform effort, more than 6,400 people with severe mental illness are
housed in adult care homes scattered across the state, living in sometimes
squalid and dangerous conditions.

The mental patients, their care typically paid for with taxpayer money,
are
often far younger than the elderly residents with whom they are housed. In
the last two years, at least four residents with mental illness have been
killed by fellow patients who had histories of severe mental illness and
violence.

Vicki Smith, the executive director of Disability Rights, said the federal
investigation could force the state to take actions to fix the mistakes
made
during North Carolina's 2001 reform effort, which has also resulted in
people with mental illness routinely languishing for days in emergency
rooms
because no bed in a psychiatric facility is available.

Word of the federal investigation also comes as the state is debating
further cuts to the state's mental health system and moving to close
Dorothea Dix Hospital.

"Now DHHS is going to have to answer a whole series of questions about why
mental health reform has failed," Smith said. "This is huge, from our
point
of view. Huge."

The Justice Department informed the state of its pending investigation
through a five page letter received by DHHS administrators in Raleigh on
Thursday. However, the state department did not publically reveal the news
until it issued a three-sentence media release earlier today, hours before
the start of the Thanksgiving Holiday.

Renee McCoy, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said there would be no
comment beyond the media release, which said the state will "work with the
Department of Justice to provide all necessary documents and information
in
response to the complaint."
michael.biesecker@newsobserver.com or 919-829-4698

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Answers to some of the Questions around the new "Waiver"

This is a PowerPoint with some of the questions asking about the new "waiver" that are coming to Western Highlands Network. We are not promising that this will answer all the questions but maybe a start.

http://www.ncdhhs.gov/mhddsas/waiver/nccounciddwaiverhandout%20-5-20-10.pdf