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Local News
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Friday, May 09, 2008, 10:04 AM
Mental health advocates want facility reopened By Janet Conner-Knox | Daily Times Staff Writer Mental health advocates are concerned that Wilson Medical Center's psychiatric unit, New Foundations, is still closed after five months, and mental health patients have to leave the Wilson community to receive services. Hospital officials say they are working to reopen the facility. In April, Mental Health Association Board President Gail Moore and Consumer and Families Advisory Committee Chairman Bill Hancock wrote a letter to Rick Hudson, WilMed president and chief executive officer, that said help for people suffering with mental health problems should be a priority for the hospital. They wrote that they did not think hospital officials are doing all they can to reopen New Foundations. "We feel that this lackadaisical sort of approach to the reopening of New Foundations is inexcusable and insulting," they wrote. "Mental health is a serious public health issue, and affects people just like any other medical issue. Mental health disorders claim lives like any other serious medical condition." The hospital closed down its psychiatric ward in January when Dr. Bush Kavuru, who ran the unit, moved from Wilson. Hospital officials said that the closing is temporary and that they are actively looking for a replacement for Kavuru. "We have not stopped looking for a psychiatrist to staff New Foundations," said Connie Rhem, communications co-ordinator for Wilson Medical Center. "We are looking for a qualified person, and we have not found that right person yet." Hancock and Moore said they think the hospital is trying to provide good quality service to the community for those who need help with physical illnesses, but that mental illness should also be included in receiving good quality service. Rhem said that when patients needs psychiatric help, they can still come to Wilson Medical Center, and the emergency room staff makes sure the patient is assessed and placed in an appropriate facility, if they need placement. Moore said that the appropriate facility is usually in Rocky Mount at Coastal Plain Hospital, or Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro. "The problem is that families need to be close for support of their loved ones. Many people who have mental illness have families that don't have transportation. So when they are hospitalized they don't get the support and visits they need," she said. Moore said that it is important that people with mental illness not have to leave the community they live in to receive service. Hancock thinks New Foundations could have been open by now. "We have good information that a psychiatrist that lives in another county offered to fill in on a temporary basis until the hospital could find a permanent doctor. But we were told that the hospital said that the psychiatrist had to live in Wilson County and the doctor that made the offer lives in Nash County," he said. Both Moore and Hancock said they want WilMed officials to make a commitment to them and the community by reopening New Foundations within 60 days, or show the progress they are making in reopening the unit. "All we seem to be getting from the hospital is 'We're working on it.' And in the meantime people are not getting the help they really need," said Moore. janet@wilsontimes.com | 265-7847
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