
{"id":6170,"date":"2009-06-11T07:08:14","date_gmt":"2009-06-11T15:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=6170"},"modified":"2009-06-11T07:08:14","modified_gmt":"2009-06-11T15:08:14","slug":"mental-health-cuts-to-take-their-toll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/06\/11\/mental-health-cuts-to-take-their-toll\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental health cuts to take their toll"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Staff writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like a bad tsunami blowing our way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Thava Mahadevan, executive director of XDS Inc., a Chapel Hill-based mental health provider, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know which way to run. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no high ground.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Mahadevan was referring to plans to largely do away with community support services in the impending state budget, with the intent of eliminating them the following year.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Like everyone else, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re quite shell shocked,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mahadevan said.<\/p>\n<p>XDS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s objective is to provide a comprehensive suite of outpatient services with a team of professionals assigned to each client, available on an around-the-clock basis. These are evidence-based assertive community treatment services, including community support services, for people with severe and persistent mental histories, most particularly designed for those with dual disorders.<\/p>\n<p>Plans to cut community support services will have a dramatic impact on a number of XDS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clients, Mahadevan said, citing the cases of several of those clients in Orange and Chatham counties:<\/p>\n<p>J.P. has been diagnosed with several mental health disorders and has a history of sexually assaultive and violent behavior. He lives with his elderly mother and stepfather. XDS meets with him for an hour each week. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s held a job for two years now and has had no brushes with the law in that period.<br \/>\nMahadevan fears that without supervision, M.W. will suffer.<\/p>\n<p>R.L. has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, cognitive deficits and ADHD. He has a history of violent behavior, setting fires and property destruction, and has had multiple hospital stays. XDS has assisted him in working toward his GED and in finding a job. After a recent attempt at reducing his level of support, M.M. stole his grandmother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s car, wrecked it and made homicidal threats to a neighbor.<\/p>\n<p>D.D. has a diagnosed bi-polar disorder and a history of violent behavior that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s led to multiple incarcerations. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been hospitalized up to 12 times a year, but in working with XDS on managing his symptoms, his hospital visits have been dramatically reduced.<\/p>\n<p>E.R. was diagnosed in adolescence with a bi-polar disorder and was frequently hospitalized for extended stays. With XDS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s help, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s graduated from UNC, is gainfully employed and has no hospital admissions in several years. XDS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s community services team delivers his medication, monitors his compliance and charts any symptoms for his psychiatrist.   <\/p>\n<p>Mahadevan acknowledges that some providers were misusing funds allotted for community services, but doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe that justifies discontinuing all such services. His clients will suffer, he said, as will taxpayers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For the taxpayer, this is a bad deal, because when you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t provide the services it ends up costing you a lot more.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d When simple, preventative services such as providing meds and monitoring their use are no longer provided, he asks, what then happens?<\/p>\n<p>Mahadevan says that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been wondering \u00e2\u20ac\u0153if this is just a bad dream,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that maybe when the budget is finalized the cuts won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be nearly so bad.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sure not looking like it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Taylor Sisk Staff writer \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s almost like a bad tsunami blowing our way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Thava Mahadevan, executive director of XDS Inc., a Chapel Hill-based mental health provider, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153and you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know which way to run. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no high ground.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Mahadevan was referring to plans to largely do away with community support services in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6171,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions\/6171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}