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The Daily Tar Heel

NC violates mental healthcare agreement

Three years later, little progress has been seen.

The department cited the state’s failure to accomplish joint goals in a Nov. 6 letter, calling for bigger steps in improving housing and treatment options for mentally ill residents.

“We still see people not getting the care they actually need,” said Jack Register, executive director of the North Carolina branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “Or, in some cases, not even enough for them to make it and we see them de-compensating and ending up in places like jails or even dead.”

Register said the state failed to meet standards in core areas including housing and vocational training.

“The state was inappropriately having people housed in adult care homes as opposed to community-based services and supportive housing,” he said.

He said the North Carolina public health sector has been in transformation for the past fifteen years, which has caused consistent policy and funding problems.

This evolution has raised concerns for many groups involved in mental health advocacy.

“It’s very hard to see how much ground we have lost,” said Marci White, executive director of Mental Health America of the Triangle.

White said North Carolina previously had a robust history of mental health programs and services that has deteriorated in the past decade due to drops in state funding.

“When the hospitals were reduced and people were deinstitutionalized and returned to their communities, they did not return to anything,” she said.

Residents with mental illnesses have seen decreasing state support since its decision to privatize mental health care services, White said.

Register said, “We’ve not done the due diligence of investing in infrastructure, and then we’re blaming what infrastructure is there when it fails.”

He said the state’s budget cuts of approximately $110 million and $152 million in two years illustrate North Carolina’s inability to support mental health services.

“Part of the problem with North Carolina’s mental health reform is that they’ve never really decided on a firm plan and a firm path,” White said. “They have not stuck to anything for long enough to see what works and what’s most efficient, as well as effective.”

state@dailytarheel.com

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