It seems that almost every week brings another jarring revelation from this state's flawed mental health-care system. Last week brought news that the State Bureau of Investigation has been asked to review allegations that employees of Central Regional Hospital in Butner used a cell phone to take partially nude photos of at least one patient, the Raleigh News & Observer reported. Legislators should put enough money in the state budget to begin to fix the system.
The state's plan to shift the responsibility of providing mental-health care from the state psychiatric hospitals to community programs didn't work. Patients cycle in and out of the crowded state hospitals. The system lacks transparency and accountability.
At the Bunter hospital, two health-care technicians are on leave while the investigation continues.
"We find it extremely disturbing that after all that has happened we would still be investigating staff behavior that is so clearly inappropriate," said Vicki Smith, the executive director of the advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina. "These folks are vulnerable. To be put in a position of being exploited by the very people who are supposed to be treating them is unconscionable."
Last year, Disability Rights sued over concerns about patient safety and insufficient staffing at Central Regional. Less than two months ago, the SBI was brought in to investigate reports that staff at the hospital's Raleigh campus had sex with female inmates who were there as part of a labor program. Officials have been slow to release information about that incident.
And there have been problems at other state hospitals.
Last summer, a mental patient at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro died some time after workers left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom -- even as they watched TV, played cards and chatted on a cell phone just a few feet away. When health-care technicians couldn't get him to walk back to his bed after all that time in a day room, they stood him up, pushed a chair under him and slid him back to his room, the News & Observer reported.
Problems in the mental health-care system go far beyond the hospitals.
Because the hospitals lack beds, many patients end up on the streets, in homeless shelters, in jails and in emergency rooms. They take doctors and law-enforcement officers away from other pressing matters. Some of the patients pose a danger to themselves and others. And they break the hearts of family and friends who try to help them navigate the system.
It's past time for this state to finally say enough is enough. The mental health- care system has too often failed some of our most vulnerable citizens.
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