Grady Health System said Tuesday that it is consolidating its outpatient mental health programs to help meet growing service needs in metro Atlanta. Grady is combining three outpatient behavioral health offices into a larger location at 10 Park Place, near MARTA’s Five Points Station hub. The move will improve access to services and will provide…
The Obama administration should finalize regulations and implement the law on mental health benefits parity passed four years ago, former President Jimmy Carter and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter told an assembly of health journalists in Atlanta on Thursday. The law requires health insurers to cover both mental and physical health equally, with the same…
The bill is more than 800 pages long. It was introduced just days before the early March “Crossover Day,” when a bill must have passed one legislative chamber to have a shot at ultimate approval. But those impediments did not diminish interest in Secretary of State Brian Kemp’s proposal to restructure the state boards that license…
Jamie Cook has come a long way in the past two years. For much of her life, she suffered from drug addiction and from bipolar disorder, along with depression and anxiety. She endured periods of homelessness. She generally acted ‘‘full of bitterness and rage,’’ alienating her family. She lost custody of her two children. And…
After seven years of being addicted to meth, Jennifer Ploof had ‘‘lost absolutely everything.’’ She had been jailed 10 times, convicted of possession of methamphetamine and possession with intent to sell the powerful drug. Meth ‘‘made me lie, do harm to others, made me abandon my child,’’ Ploof says. Ploof, 27, is now in recovery…
The patient, 73, was struggling to recover from surgery for the breast cancer that had spread into her bones. She had also suffered respiratory failure. When the ventilator was turned down so she could breathe on her own, she battled anxiety. The doctors at Atlanta’s Wesley Woods Geriatric Hospital decided she needed something to focus…
A recent government inspection of Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital found some building improvements needed to be made at the facility, including an upgrade of its fire sprinklers. Blocks away from the main campus, a Grady mental health outpatient clinic on Auburn Avenue has experienced its own structural problems: an often malfunctioning system for air conditioning…
First came the closing of a state psychiatric hospital in Rome and the creation of community mental health services in the area. Now mental health services may be revamped further in the North Georgia region, this time with a version of managed care. The state is designing a pilot program for the 31-county region that would…
Colleges need a new type of education program on their campuses, says Kristen McLean, an Emory grad student. It’s called Mental Health First Aid. This program trains people how to recognize, understand and respond to signs and symptoms of mental illnesses and substance abuse disorders, with the goal of helping someone in crisis, McLean writes…
A close family friend recently experienced a mental health crisis, in the first few weeks of his freshman year at college. He had trouble sleeping and stopped going to class. The way he described it, his mind just “didn’t feel right.” Before friends and family became aware of his situation, campus police had already escorted…