Odom

The News and Observer’s Sunday edition featured yet another investigative story detailing the dangerous condition of the state’s mental health system. This time the problem revealed is the placement of people with mental illness in rest homes where the staff has no training to take care of them.

That puts everyone at risk, the patients with mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, the other rest home residents, and the staff and visitors. And that’s not just a potential problem. There have been scores of reported incidents including rapes and other violent acts.

The N&O reports that there are now more than 6,000 people suffering from mental illness in the state’s rest homes, a 15 percent increase in the last four years. The culprit, not so indirectly, is the way the state’s mental health reform efforts have been conducted, downsizing state mental hospitals without providing enough funding for community programs to provide services.