Fitzsimon File

Troubling news about North Carolina's troubled mental health system has come often in the last year and that's not likely to change soon, despite some recent progress including a new hospital in Butner and new investments in crisis services across the state.

Problems continue with other state mental hospitals and thousands of people are still not getting the services they need in their communities, the fundamental promise of the 2001 reform efforts.

Twelve hundred people were discharged from mental hospitals to homeless shelters in 2007, a scandal that has received far less attention than it deserves, especially since the problem hasn't improved much in the first half of 2008.

With only a handful of exceptions, most of the reports about the problems with the 2001 reforms have focused on mental health services provided or not provided, and overseen by a division of the Department of Health and Human Services.

But it is the Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services, not just the Division of Mental Health, a point that the 140,000 people in the state with lifelong significant developmental disabilities and their family members believe is vital to remember.

The shorthand for the name of the Department seems to translate often into a shortage of attention to issues that affect the lives of people with disabilities, lives that have been just as dramatically changed by the 2001 reforms as those of people living with mental illness.

People with disabilities face waiting lists for services, inadequate state institutions, inappropriate placement in nursing homes unequipped to care them, and a maze of confusing state and federal regulations that baffle family members trying to help.

And like in the mental health field, there's been some progress in recent years, more investments in housing, crisis care, and new slots for community assistance services, though not enough to keep many people at home and out of expensive institutions.

All those challenges and others were addressed at a recent summit sponsored by the N.C. Council on Developmental Disabilities that included experts, legislators, and people with disabilities and their family members. 

The summit issued a detailed paper with recommendations for state policymakers on a variety of issues affecting the disability community including employment, deinstitutionalization, case management and the compelling need for higher pay and professional development for direct service workers.

The paper also provides a realistic look at what families and people with disabilities face in an era with tight state budgets, aging caregivers, increasing pressure for privatization, and the ongoing efforts to refine the disastrous 2001 reform legislation.

The Council bills it as a place for the next governor and leadership of Health and Human Services to start an overdue reassessment of state disability policy and programs and let's hope the next administration takes the Council up on it.

One important step might be to make it clear again that mental health reform also means changes in how services are provided to people with disabilities too. That's more than a policy fight, it's a battle for recognition and attention.

There is much in common between the disability and mental health communities.  Many people belong to both and face similar struggles, including the ongoing stigma that makes their lives more difficult.

The latest example of that comes from Hollywood in the new movie Tropic Thunder that uses the term "retard" and includes disparaging portrayals of people with disabilities. Groups including Special Olympics North Carolina and The Arc of North Carolina issued a statement this week blasting the movie for what ARC Director Dave Richard calls doing "serious damage to people in with intellectual disability."

Richard is right. The movie makes the struggle for sound disability policy and increased investments for services more difficult and that's the last thing we need in North Carolina.

 Email This Post  Print This Post

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.