{"id":1901,"date":"2011-06-15T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/georgia-moving-people-out-of-mental-hospitals.html"},"modified":"2011-06-15T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T13:00:00","slug":"georgia-moving-people-out-of-mental-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/06\/georgia-moving-people-out-of-mental-hospitals.html","title":{"rendered":"Georgia moving people out of mental hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"The state of Georgia is stopping admitting to state mental hospitals\npeople with developmental disabilities and is starting to move many people with\nsevere and persistent mental illness out of state hospitals into\nthe communities.\n

\nAccording to\n\nDBHDD Summary of October 2010 Settlement<\/a>\nby Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities,\nFrank E. Shelp, M.D., M.P.H., Commissioner:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nBy July 1, 2011, Georgia will stop admitting to its state hospitals\npeople for whom the reason for admission would be a primary diagnosis of\na developmental disability, including Temporary and Immediate Care (TIC).\n

\nEnhanced community services will be provided for people whose primary\ndiagnosis is a developmental disability and who are either currently\nhospitalized in state hospitals or who are at risk of hospitalization in\nstate hospitals. Those with forensic status may be included in the target\npopulation if the relevant court finds community placement appropriate.\n

\nIn all cases, the individuals served will be able to make an informed\nchoice about where they\u2019d like to live. Unless they choose otherwise,\neveryone in the target population will be served in their own homes\nor the homes of their families and none will be served in a host home,\ncongregate living setting, skilled nursing facility, intermediate care\nfacility, or assisted living facility. All of the waiver participants\nwill receive support coordination.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd a larger group of people:\n\n\n

\nGeorgia will provide expanded and enhanced community services for\napproximately 9000 people with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness who\nare either currently being served in state hospitals, are frequently\nreadmitted to state hospitals, are frequently seen in emergency rooms,\nare chronically homeless, and\/or who are being released from jails or\nprisons. People with forensic status can be included in the target\npopulation if the relevant court finds that community services are\nappropriate.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nCall me cynical, but why does this come to mind, from\n\nTreating an “epidemic of mass incarceration”<\/a>:\n

\nThe largest facilities housing psychiatric patients in the U.S. are not\nhospitals but jails, the authors write. Major depression and psychotic\ndisorders are four to eight times as prevalent among inmates as in the\ngeneral population. However, only 22 percent of state prisoners and 7\npercent of jail inmates receive mental health care while incarcerated.\n<\/blockquote>\nSeems to me the most likely result of releasing large numbers of\npeople from state hospitals will be increased homelessness and\nincarceration; that’s what happened when Reagan did it.\n

\nMaybe I’m not reading it right.\nMaybe the state of Georgia is serious about treatment in the community\nand rehabilitation of prisoners.\nMaybe someone more familiar with what is going on here can\nprovide an opinion.\n

\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The state of Georgia is stopping admitting to state mental hospitals people with developmental disabilities and is starting to move many people with severe and persistent mental illness out of state hospitals into the communities. According to DBHDD Summary of October 2010 Settlement by Georgia Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities, Frank E. Shelp, […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[40,2,41,19,72],"tags":[4376,4378,8701,8718,8730,4375,4377],"class_list":["post-1901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-government","category-health-care","category-history","category-incarceration","tag-developmental-disorder","tag-frank-e-shelp","tag-georgia","tag-health-care","tag-incarceration","tag-mental-illness","tag-state-hospital"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-uF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}