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For the Record: As a community

Posted on February 21, 2008February 25, 2008 by Staff

As a community
There was a frustrating inevitability to the failure of the state’s effort to farm out the care of its citizens with developmental disabilities and those in need of mental health care to the free market. The signs of an impending collapse were there and became even clearer over the past year as the leadership of the state system moved on and more and more providers said they could not continue under new payment rates set by the state.

So, an under-funded system reliant on offering profitability to its providers began a series of cutbacks and, finally last week Caring Family Network — the primary provider in Orange, Person and Chatham counties — announced that within the next month it would be discontinuing most of the services it’s been offering.

More than a thousand Orange County clients and their families are now faced with an uncertain future and a rapidly dwindling access to care.

Our county is just one of many throughout the state facing similar situations where the burden shifts quickly to local social service agencies, law enforcement, health care agencies and hospitals. This is a symptom of a larger problem with the market model. The system is not just broken; it’s stuck with a solution that isn’t working. One fear is that the easy thing to do is to pump a little more money into such a system and hope the next time around you get different results.

Even that will take awhile, and in the meantime thousands of individuals in need of care will go without.

We hope that our community will rise to the challenge and fill the gap in care. And though any local solution will be temporary, neither should this county nor the state be in any hurry to find the next for-profit enterprise willing to take on the mission.

We need a deeper, more comprehensive solution — one that protects our fellow citizens from the combination of market forces and political neglect. The people of this state have shown time and time again that they can pull together to create a brighter future.

We need a mental health system that reflects the same sense of mission and core values that built our university and community college systems. These are our brother, sisters, husbands, wives, parents, children and friends. They should be in our care.

Yes, a market-based model for mental health care offers some efficiencies, but community concern and dedication should never be jobbed out.

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