The cost of reform
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007
By Chris Fitzsimon
State investigators are right to delve into the finances of a new Charlotte-area mental health program that serves more clients, by a relatively small percentage, than the program it replaced, but that costs $20 million more per month. The program understandably has raised the eyebrows of state Rep. Verla Insko of Orange County, who is one of the legislature’s best informed members on the subject of mental health treatment.
The aim of Mecklenburg County’s new program, run mostly by private firms, is to help clients toward self-sufficiency. That is an objective at the heart of what has been North Carolina’s fits-and-starts attempt at mental health care reform. For nearly a decade, the state has been — or was supposed to have been — moving in the direction of getting the mentally ill out of long stints in big, centralized hospitals and into smaller programs closer to their communities.
The implicit goal, of course, is faster healing for hurting North Carolinians. They would be closer to supportive family and friends. Patients who get better sooner would be in a better position to get jobs and live independently. (more…)
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