NC Mental Health woes

And of course they aren't aware they're at risk:

Changes to state Medicaid rules that will cut benefits to group home residents across the state will also affect between 3,000 and 4,000 people with Alzheimer's disease who live in adult care facilities, sources close to state proceedings told WRAL News Wednesday.

I will freely admit that many of the issues I blog about are not from experience, but from research, the vast majority of which I glean from online sources. But this is one issue I learned about firsthand, and I will likely spend the rest of my life trying to repair the parts of my heart that broke as a result.

3,000 more chairs, to be precise:

The county, spending $22 million a year on mental health, had “imbedded” care for those groups into widespread operations and clinics. Now each part of the care that Wake County had offered through its Human Services Department must be examined as part of the ongoing “divestiture.” That means some other private or nonprofit entity will likely take over the work through a contract with Alliance.

There appears to be a whole lot of potential cracks for these patients to fall through, and part of this park deal should be an agreement by the State and Raleigh/Wake to make sure that doesn't happen.

Because we refuse to make the needed changes to our mental health system:

A study released Wednesday by Disability Rights North Carolina says the state is failing children with a "dual diagnosis," such as having both autism and bipolar disorder. The report shows the state quadrupled the number of children housed in facilities outside North Carolina between 2005 and 2010, from 117 to 494.

To call this a "failure" is a gross understatement. It's somewhere between an abrogation of responsibility and criminal negligence. And yes, this might sound petty and self-centered, but it's also downright embarassing. South Carolina and Tennessee can provide better care? Really?