A Big Fix for New Hampshire’s Mental Health System

By Laura Knoy on Monday, September 29, 2008.

The Granite State used to win national praise for the way it cared for people with mental illness, but a new report says the system is now “broken”. It also suggests a new ten-year overhaul plan. We’ll get the details, look at the state of our mental health system and how and why it went downhill.

Guests

  • Louis Josephson, president and CEO of Riverbend Community Mental Health in Concord
  • Nancy Rollins, Associate Commissioner for the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services
  • Kathy Sgambati, Democratic state senator from Tilton and former deputy commissioner and acting commissioner of the Department of Health and Human Services

We'll also hear from

  • Donald Shumway, president and CEO of Crotched Mountain Rehabilitation Center, former commissioner of Health and Human Services and longtime leader in New Hampshire's mental health care reform efforts
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us house and senate
caroline french - Tue, 09/30/2008 - 08:43

Someone said that the senate passed mental health parity act, NOT SO, the house passed it and this needs correction!!

Mental Health Exchange Program
Ed Duffy - Wed, 10/01/2008 - 21:23

When asked whether Emergency Departments and Hospitals were represented in the plan, Louis Josephson stated "yes, absolutely". I am both an Emergency Physician and a Hospital Board Chair. We were not directly involved in the plan. John from Plymouth is absolutely correct that at the Emergency Department level, the old and the new plan does not address care in the E.D. There is a serious disconnect between Emergency Physicians and Emergency Mental Health workers (and most of the other professionals and bureaucrats in the Mental Health system)and the new plan does not address this. This disconnect is especially problematic in the rural hospitals (mostly) in the north. This disconnect is manifested by Nancy Rawlins statement that rural Critical Access Hospitals often will stabilize [psychiatrically] patients before they recieve definitive care (presumably at NHH). This could not be further from the truth as we are not equipped physically and professionally to psychiatrically care for these patients. And we don't do so. We are sometimes forced to wharehouse patients that the State system cannot take or have rejected, but this is not the plan, and should not be the plan since this is not in the best interest of the patient or the community at large.