News
Psychiatric Care Strained
7/12/2010 A surge in emergency room patients needing psychiatric care has strained Carolinas Medical Center’s overall ability to provide psychiatric services, according to an internal hospital memorandum obtained by the Observer. The July 2 memo, sent to hospital staff from CMC president Suzanne Freeman and senior vice president James Hunter, said CMC is taking steps and considering long-range plans to accommodate the increase in patients.
Randolph Hospital Raises Concerns About Wait-Time For Mental Health Patients In Emergency Department
7/12/2010 Last fall, Randolph Hospital opened a transition unit for individuals awaiting transfer to an inpatient psychiatric facility. Hospital officials say moving some of those patients to the seven-bed unit eases the strain on the hospital’s emergency department, which has 22 beds. Nurses are on duty when the unit is open; the hospital created a new position — sitters — non-professionals to watch over patients in the unit.
V.A. Is Easing Rules to Cover Stress Disorder
The government is preparing to issue new rules that will make it substantially easier for veterans who have been found to have post-traumatic stress disorder to receive disability benefits, a change that could affect hundreds of thousands of veterans from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.
The regulations from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which will take effect as early as Monday and cost as much as $5 billion over several years according to Congressional analysts, will essentially eliminate a requirement that veterans document specific events like bomb blasts, firefights or mortar attacks that might have causedP.T.S.D., an illness characterized by emotional numbness,irritability and flashbacks.
For decades, veterans have complained that finding such records was extremely time consuming and sometimes impossible. And in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, veterans groups assert that the current rules discriminate against tens of thousands of service members — many of them women — who did not serve in combat roles but nevertheless suffered traumatic experiences.
Camden rejects mental health building transfer
CAMDEN — In what one board member said was a protest against the continued payment of retirement benefits to someone who “destroyed mental health in the area,” Camden County commissioners voted Tuesday to deny the transfer of the former Albemarle Mental Health building to East Carolina Behavioral Health.
Commissioners deadlocked 2-2 on the transfer, effectively rejecting ECBH’s request that the county turn over ownership of the mental health building at Camden Medical Park to the area’s new mental health service provider.
Hundreds of medical records dumped in public
CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – A WBTV investigation has prompted at least two Mecklenburg County officials to investigate how piles of medical records were found discarded in a public county dumping facility.
WBTV ON YOUR SIDE made the discovery after a tip from a viewer. In an email late Saturday night, County Commission Chair Jennifer Roberts said she had been trading voicemails with County Manager Harry Jones and are ”looking into the clinic that dumped the records checking [to] see what we can legally do.”
The records which were by the hundreds, possibly thousands, were all within arms reach at the facility. One photograph WBTV obtained showed at least 3 boxes full of records from 2007-2009.
The people whose names are on the pages, likely don’t even know they information is there. Inside, there were social security numbers, addresses, patient consultations which included full medical histories. There were also photocopies of insurance cards, prescribed medication surprisingly, some files even had a picture of the patient.
