NCARF Weekly E-News

Each week four panelists representing a range of political philosophies engage in an unrehearsed thirty minute program dealing exclusively with issues like education, taxes, politics, race, transportation, and the economy that affect the people of North Carolina.

The podcast is available online.

http://www.ncspin.com/

This Week:

Mental Health Reform a Failure
Well it took a while but we finally heard a public official admit what the rest of us knew: mental health reform in this state is a failure. The straw that broke the proverbial back of the camel was the admission that Dorothea Dix Hospital would remain open for the foreseeable future. No less than Representative Verla Insko, a champion for the mental health reforms, has agreed that the programs have failed. She told the News and Observer, "The implementation of reform was not successful. I don`t think you can call it a complete failure, but certainly it has not measured up to our expectations. Now is not the time to downsize, given the budget cuts to community services."

Dix had been slated to close because it is in terrible need of repair and because the reforms were designed to get the state out of the hospital business and transfer those issues to local governments. Informed sources told us that Central Regional Hospital in Butner was chosen to be the site of a new state mental hospital, in part because Senator Tony Rand didn`t want Raleigh to get it. Nobody wants to own that decision now because of the horrible design problems at the new facility and the poor implementation in opening it. Further, the concept of moving patients to local hospitals and service providers has failed and the demand on all mental health hospitals has been greater than ever. Cherry, in Goldsboro, is due to be replaced soon.

Those were many salivating to get their hands on the 300-plus acres of the Dix campus. Some wanted the land for a public park. Others wanted it for apartments or office buildings. None seem to remember that in the 90`s the state developed a Master Plan for state government in Raleigh. The Dix property was envisioned to be the site for expansion in state government because they had run out of land in the government complex. The plan was presented to the Council of State. We already have about 1,000 government employees working on the campus, many with the Department of Health and Human Services.

Nonetheless, it doesn`t appear that anything is going to be happening with the property in the near term. Tune in for our discussion on this topic this week on NC SPIN.