A 24-hour mobile crisis unit has been established to provide timelier mental-health care to residents in Davie, Forsyth and Stokes counties, Forsyth Medical Center said yesterday.
More than $1 million in grant money, including $675,000 over three years from the Duke Endowment, has been dedicated toward the unit within Forsyth Behavioral Health at the hospital.
An additional $350,000 was provided from CenterPoint Human Services through the hospital's foundation to help pay for equipment and operational expenses for the first 12 months.
The unit, which will operate year-round, is expected to complement the face-to-face assessment services already provided by a mental-health access team in the hospital's emergency department.
The mobile-crisis unit has been operated on a limited basis since May 12. It has three full-time employees and one vehicle. There are plans to add two more employees and another vehicle. There are no income criteria for eligibility for the service.
"This unit will help meet a huge need in our community regarding helping people with psychiatric, substance-abuse or disability issues," said Jeff Eads, the community-operations manager of CenterPoint.
"It will allow people to be treated at their home, their school, their work or other settings, rather than having them entering a hospital setting or being hospitalized to resolve their crisis."
According to the hospital, about 4,500 people were examined last year by its mental-health access team, "in part because of a lack of adequate community-based mental health-crisis services."
Forsyth officials project that the mobile crisis unit will serve more than 900 people in its first year.
A long-term goal for the hospital is establishing a behavioral-health crisis center on its main campus, which would include consultation rooms, a special waiting area and 24-hour observation.
According to the fiscal research division of the General Assembly, there are 1.1 million North Carolinians with health issues involving mental illness, development disability or addictions -- not including the homeless or those living in institutions.
The division also reported that an average of 350,000 residents are examined each year through programs focused on those three health categories.
Mental-health assistance and treatment received considerable focus during the recent General Assembly sessions, in part because of media reports of incidents in which mental-health patients were harmed by a lack of timely care.
Many problems have occurred since a 2001 overhaul of the state's mental-health system, which was intended to move patients from state psychiatric hospitals to community programs.
To help combat continuing problems, legislators approved $5.7 million for the 2008-09 budget to help subsidize the cost of 30 mobile crisis teams. There are currently 19 such units in the state.
They also approved $1.9 million for six crisis teams to help developmentally disabled residents, and $6.1 million for local walk-in clinics for crisis and immediate psychiatric care.
Local mental-health officials expect to learn by mid-September how much money they will receive from the state for the mobile crisis unit and the local walk-in clinics. Cornerstone operates a walk-in clinic at the Behavioral Health Plaza.
"We need to have something like a 24-hour walk-in clinic to evaluate and treat people going through a mental-health or substance-abuse crisis in a more appropriate and less-restrictive environment," said Andy Hagler, the executive director of the Mental Health Association of Forsyth County.
The creation of the mobile crisis team for the three counties is part of an initiative to provide such coverage "within 30 miles or 30 minutes of every resident in the state," said John Tote, the executive director of the Mental Health Association of North Carolina.
The funding "was recognition by the General Assembly that there is a tremendous assessment gap in the state," Tote said.
"But even with the expansion of the mobile crisis teams, we will continue to struggle with lacking enough resources
to meet the entire need," he said.
"The center that Forsyth is planning is a step in the right direction as well."
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
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