McCrory takes on Mental Health

Editorial by Rocky Mount Telegram, November 11, 2013.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services has been short on details, but Secretary Aldona Wos’ pledge last week to improve mental health services in North Carolina is a welcome development.

For too long, mental health care in North Carolina has been a wreck. Former Gov. Mike Easley attempted to reduce costs and make mental health services more localized by deinstitutionalizing hundreds of patients.

Unfortunately, the plan had wide, disastrous consequences. With institutional care at state hospitals greatly reduced, people with mental disabilities often turned up at local emergency rooms seeking treatment or on arrest blotters for lack of medication and counseling.

In the meantime, some outlier counseling services took advantage of their new roles as outsource centers by billing the state at higher rates than they were entitled to. In effect, fewer people with mental health issues received the kind of care they desperately needed, and care from private enterprises often proved more expensive than what the state had provided when it offered a larger range of mental services.

Gov. Pat McCrory recognizes the problems that historically have plagued the system. Wos said last week the Department of Health and Human Serives would better coordinate efforts to make sure people get the care they need.

All of that sounds fine, and McCrory and his team deserve a chance to succeed where Easley failed. Here’s hoping the governor and his administration are quick to fill in solid details in this area that has been neglected for far too long.