WIS News 10 - Columbia, South Carolina | Mental Health considers worker furloughs to deal with possible budget cuts

Mental Health considers worker furloughs to deal with possible budget cuts

(Columbia-AP) March 5, 2003 - The Mental Health Commission is trying to figure out how to deal with a potential $15 million dollar budget cut. Commission chief of staff Geoff Mason says officials are considering furloughs for non-essential administrative workers.

Mason says the Mental Health Department is trying to minimize cuts in services. He says there will be no cuts in acute-care beds.

Hospitals across the state are already dealing with emergency rooms crowded with mental patients for whom no beds are available. Mental Health has had to eliminate nearly 250 treatment beds and close two facilities because of severe budget cuts.

The agency has also faced a contempt of court citation for delays in treatment of mentally ill inmates. Mason says officials haven't decided about cutting the number of other beds, but the plan includes trimming about $7 million from in-patient facilities. The budget proposal would also cut at least a fourth of the beds at Morris Village, which handles drug and alcohol addiction.

Last week coalition of police, judges and mental health advocates asked the General Assembly to set aside about $10 million to help reduce the number mentally ill people waiting in jails for state treatment.

Dr. John Stewart, who runs the ER at Palmetto Health in Columbia, says the patients won't disappear if Mental Health cut its space again, "They'll end up in this hospital emergency department."

posted 7:53am by Chris Rees