Health

(Updated) Paper investigates mental health services in the mountains

Last modified on 2008-11-18 22:12:24 GMT. 1 comment. Top.

REGIONAL–Former Asheville Citizen Times editor and reporter Quinton Ellison has developed a three-part series for CNI papers investigating the state of mental health services in western North Carolina.

Part One: Mental health reform fails to empower

[Reform has created a] mental health system that has wasted, not saved, millions of tax dollars. And worse, many of the state’s most vulnerable residents are unable to obtain adequate treatments. For those people and their families, the price has been incalculable.

Part Two: Not enough service providers in western North Carolina

[Some say] mental health reform - that great blueprint for change the General Assembly launched in 2001 – has been a dismal failure. And the losers have been the thousands of North Carolina residents suffering from mental illnesses who are receiving inadequate treatment and help.

Part Three: Funding, local control needed

“The system needs to be less complicated and have more local involvement,” Macon County Commissioner Ronnie Beale says. “Our needs may be different from Rutherford County, which may be different from Wake County. And, with local input and local control, you have to have the local funding.”

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