ADVOCACY NEWS FROM NAMI NEW JERSEY:
1. Slayings Shine Harsh Light on a Psychiatric Hospital
2. Embattled Acting Human Services Chief Quits
3. Mental Health Rules Will Impair Care, Some Say
4. Lecture Questions Death Penalty
5. NAMI Advocate Regina Palo to Be Honored
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SLAYINGS SHINE HARSH LIGHT ON A PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL
For more than two decades New Jersey and other states have focused on closing or downsizing mental institutions in favor of community-based housing and care. In reality, the demand for such housing greatly outstrips the supply, and patients cleared for discharge often wait. More than 300 people are being kept at Ancora because they have no place to go, according to state mental health officials. By last summer the hospital had grown into a mini-city of 780 residents judged a danger to themselves or others, overcrowded and understaffed.
But the drapes lifted on July 14, 2006, toward the end of the second shift.
Read Susan Livio and Mary Jo Patterson’s Star Ledger story:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1170567845209960.xml&coll=1
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EMBATTLED ACTING HUMAN SERVICES CHIEF QUITS
Eight months after Gov. Jon Corzine plucked him from relative obscurity to run the largest department in state government, the acting commissioner of human services abruptly resigned yesterday amid persistent questions about his fitness for the job.
View the story:
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-11/1170395348132690.xml&coll=1
Read the Star Ledger Editorial Only the best for the job
www.nj.com/opinion/ledger/editorials/index.ssf?/base/news-1/1170481067165990.xml&coll=1
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MENTAL HEALTH RULES WILL IMPAIR CARE, SOME SAY
New state regulations are scheduled to take effect February 5th that limit the length of stay and Medicaid reimbursement at hospital-based programs providing outpatient services to adults in need of psychiatric care. Officials say the new regulations are necessary to hold down costs for what the mental health system calls partial hospitalization. Some at hospitals say the new rules could severely impair their ability to provide care and actually may end up limiting access to services.
Read more:
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LECTURE QUESTIONS DEATH PENALTY
David Kaczynski, brother of the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, spoke Wednesday on the subject of mental illness and the death penalty, in an event hosted by Seton Hall University. The lecture recounted his experiences with his brother and the trial that could have sentenced Ted Kaczynski to death, despite the fact that he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.
“Ted wasn’t saved because of his illness, he was saved because of his lawyers,” he said, but such resources are not available to every defendant facing the death penalty.
Read more:
http://domapp01.shu.edu/depts/affairs/Setonian.nsf/0/27BF95B83C72DD0B852572750077BB11?OpenDocument
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NAMI ADVOCATE REGINA PALO TO BE HONORED
For two decades, NAMI advocate Regina Palo pushed Essex County to repair or replace its crumbling psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove, where patients spent summers without central air conditioning and dealt with insufficient staff and supplies. On Wednesday, February 7th County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo will fulfill a promise made nearly three years ago by naming the library in the newly opened Essex County Hospital Center in her honor.
Congratulations Regina!
http://www.essex-countynj.org/index.php?section=pr/print/122006
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