Finding a Way - Winston-Salem (NC) Jounal

JOURNAL EDITORIAL STAFF - October 6, 2008

It's good that Cannon Memorial Hospital in Linville has found a way to reopen its inpatient psychiatric-care unit, because the state's system of mental health-health care is seriously compromised. Let's hope Cannon's plan works — and encourages other local programs of its type.

The state's overhaul of its mental health-care system, which was supposed to shift the burden of providing that care from the state psychiatric hospitals to private-care providers in communities, failed miserably, largely because of poor planning. As state officials try to overhaul their overhaul, local entities such as Cannon Memorial have had to struggle to help all the vulnerable patients the state left in the lurch. Those with mental problems have ended up in emergency rooms, homeless shelters and jails. Other patients have landed back in the state psychiatric hospitals, which have sometimes provided inadequate care.

The struggle to provide mental-health care has been especially hard in rural areas, where services for such care were already limited. After Cannon Memorial closed its inpatient psychiatric unit in 2005 because of financial difficulties, the closest inpatient psychiatric units had been a half-hour's drive and longer away.

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