Tonight, the Buncombe County Commissioners learned of a new problem nursing and adult care homes were experiencing. When they received last year’s reports from the Nursing Home and Adult Care Home community advisory committees, they learned sanitary conditions in some homes were wretched, and the frail elderly continued to be imperiled by having to share quarters with the mentally ill. The latter was the result of the closing of mental health institutions in the name of mental health reform. Federal courts ruled such institutions were discriminatory, and the state believed mainstreaming the mentally ill in personal care homes would be more therapeutic than the hospitals had been.
The issue that caught the commissioners by surprise was that persons from South Carolina were draining the care facilities. South Carolina mental health hospitals had taken to discharging persons to North Carolina because better services are available in this state. North Carolinians running facilities and receiving income from filled beds have been recruiting South Carolinians as commodities. On one hand, it was good that Buncombe County had a surplus of beds; however, Buncombe taxpayers were generously subsidising care for the imports. Following a line of questioning by Chair David Gantt, it was disclosed that the South Carolinians often called the ombudsman asking, “’Why am I here? How did I get here and I want to go home.’” These people rarely received visits from family.
The commissioners wanted to follow up on legislation proposed by Martin Nesbitt to increase the residency requirement from 90 days to 180 days. Three reports are available through the commissioners’ web site.
