Mental health center offers support

I’d like to comment on the article published in the Morning News on Nov. 13, titled, “Mental health group bring wellness home.”

It is fortunate that there are several advocacy, peer and professionally-based organizations in our community who are willing to work on behalf of those who suffer from mental illness. Mental Health America is one of those valuable organizations.

Although Pee Dee Mental Health Center was not mentioned in the article, I would like to remind your readers that we are here to serve all who suffer from severe and persistent mental illness. We currently serve approximately 3,500 such individuals, or over 1 percent of the total population in our catchment area of Florence, Darlington and Marion counties.

The article states that some individuals have had difficulties accessing mental health services in Florence in a timely manner. Please be aware that our policy is to see all new referred patients within 10 working days, and all children within seven. If you’ve tried recently to get an appointment as a new patient at any other physician’s office, I think you will agree that this is a reasonable timeframe. Emergencies are seen immediately. Under some circumstances, they are referred to the ER, but are always appropriately escorted there.

The number of inpatient psychiatric beds across the state has decreased markedly, and it is true that this had resulted in some mentally ill patients being held and treated in local hospital emergency departments, as reported in the article. I’d like to report that, unlike some other areas of the state, this situation has improved markedly in the Pee Dee. Last year at this time, on any given day you could find an average of 17 mentally ill patients in area ERs. Pee Dee Mental Health Center instituted a program to put our senior clinicians in the busiest ERs, and this has led to a significant decrease. Today, the number has been reduced to an average of just five mentally ill patients in area ERs at any given time.

We need to remain vigilant and concerned about the welfare of the mentally ill in our community. This year, Pee Dee Mental Health has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in state money because of the financial crisis that your newspaper has so excellently covered. I anticipate we will lose even more before the end of the fiscal year. Other psychiatric services within the Department of Mental Health have been similarly affected. It is likely, for example, that there will be fewer and fewer state-supported psychiatric-beds as time goes on.

While we will continue to provide the highest quality services to the community we possibly can, there is an inevitable connection between funding and service delivery. We will almost certainly lose some of our valued employees, and we may have to close one of our clinics. As we work through this difficult time, it is critical that all organizations devoted to the welfare and treatment of the mentally ill work closely together and support one another.

— Phil Bowman, M.D., Ph.D., is the executive director of the Pee Dee Mental Health Center.