Protest over closure of acute mental health unit in Co Galway
Plotnick is confident this component will happen. Many mental health advocates across many states are not so sure, though, and have been nervously lobbying legislators not to push for an about-face. So if all goes well, the Affordable Care Act will get most individuals in the U.S. health insurance. (The U.K. will still be ahead of the game by covering all.) Mental health in the U.S., too, would finally be a part of health coverage, as in the U.K. Plotnick expands on this by discussing the private/ public battle so prominent in the U.S.
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Occupational Therapy and Mental Health
Members of a panel that included McLean County health care providers and public officials drilled down to the stumbling block that may have prevented a cooperative community effort on key mental health issues and the fiscal resources that could be leveraged to fund expanded services. Sheriff Mike Emery told the audience of about 60 mental health and criminal justice professionals that the model used to establish the McLean County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council could be used to initiate a broad-based discussion on the deficiencies in the mental health system that result in a growing population of mentally ill people coming to the jail. The justice council addressed serious overcrowding at the jail in 2008 and has gone on to study court-related matters that affect the length of time a person remains in jail. The sheriff said he supports the formation of a task force to review how local mental health tax funds are spent and what services may be lacking in the community. A recent review of jail records by Illinois State Universitys Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development showed that 893 individuals with a severe mental illness have been booked into the jail since 2007. Of those inmates, 649 returned to jail more than once, many on violent or drug related offenses. Retired McLean County Health Department Administrator Bob Keller explained that additional money could be available through a county mental health tax levy.
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State’s mental health system adjusts to tighter budgets
Early occupational therapists introduced therapeutic occupations such as weaving, art, and bookbinding. These goal-directed activities were used to help individuals learn new skills to be productive, and derive therapeutic benefits of a balanced daily schedule. The occupational therapy profession grew as wounded soldiers returned from World War II, and then surged again in the 1970s with the medical fields increase in specialized skills and knowledge. Occupational therapists always have believed in treating the whole person, whether the primary problem relates to physical or mental health. They practice in diverse settings, including hospitals, outpatient clinics, skilled nursing facilities, intermediate care facilities, home health, neonatal intensive care units, community programs and the workplace. Those who work in mental health can do so in residential hospitals, community-based mental health settings and outpatient private practice clinics. Assessments and Treatments When working with someone with a mental health condition, occupational therapists employ a variety of assessments.
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A delegation from the locality has sought a meeting with Minister of State for Mental Health Kathleen Lynch to convey serious public concern over the plans. The Psychiatric Nurses Association (PNA) says that the removal of acute beds from St Brigids Psychiatric Hospital in Ballinasloe without appropriate community facilities having been put in place first was never envisaged under the Governments Vision for Change strategy on mental health. Controversial decision Senior mental health service managers in Co Galway have already appealed directly to national director of mental health services Stephen Mulvany to review the controversial decision, which involves referring patients who would use the Ballinasloe unit on to an older unit at Roscommon. The managers told the director in a letter during the summer that they could not understand how a facility which has just been refurbished, at a cost of 2.8 million, could be seen as less modern than the unit at the department of psychiatry at Roscommon County Hospital , which was last fully refurbished more than 20 years ago. Roscommons hospital has no 24-hour emergency unit, unlike Portiuncula in Ballinasloe, which maintains a close relationship with St Brigids. At a public meeting last month, Roscommon Independent TD Denis Naughten described the Ballinasloe unit as state of the art the most modern in the country, and said that the scoring system used by the HSE to arrive at the decision made no sense. Over the summer mental health patients in Roscommon were being sent to Galway because there was no room for them in Roscommon or in Ballinasloe.
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Mental health officials: Focus on funding, priorities
Adjusting the system As fallout from the recent hospital closures, Calhoun-Cleburne Mental Health will be one of five north Alabama care centers required to open a 24-hour-a-day, 16-bed facility, Turner said. The state closed Searcy Hospital in Mount Vernon and Greil Montgomery Psychiatric Hospital late last year due to budget deficits and now needs new facilities to house mentally ill patients. Also, services are being scaled back at Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa and North Alabama Regional Hospital in Decatur. Called a designated mental health facility, the new care center in Calhoun County will treat only non-criminal patients petitioned for commitment and treatment by the court system. Such patients will include those exhibiting major depression, suicidal tendencies or erratic behavior. “We’re having to find places to commit these patients,” Turner said. “But the positive is we’ll be able to treat these patients locally and families will be able to visit and not have to travel.” Jim Reddoch, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental Health, said his department received an extra $13.5 million for the 2014 fiscal year from the state Legislature to pay for the new facilities in the northern part of the state.
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