Maybe it was eight years of divinity school training (on top of his medical degree) that has kept Peter Morris from shouting, "I told you so!"

Lord knows, he'd have every right.

Morris, the medical director for Wake County Human Services, was one of the last holdouts against the privatization of mental health care.

The last time I spoke with Morris in person was nearly two years ago, when the state was applying extreme pressure for the county to turn over care of even the most severely mentally ill to private providers.

Morris warned that moving too fast would make it hard for the county to maintain high standards of quality in a fast-growing industry of providers.

Carmen Hooker Odom, then the secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, warned in an interview that there'd be hell to pay if Wake didn't quit dragging its heels.

Finally, Wake County capitulated. And look at what the rush to privatization has wrought.

In Sunday's installment of "Mental Disorder: The Failure of Reform," we learned that at least $400 million has been wasted statewide on community support services -- while care for people with critical needs is being cut.

Many readers, I know, have been shocked that $61 an hour is being spent in some agencies for workers to take the mentally ill on excursions, to the movies and out to eat.

But let me clarify right here: The frontline workers, most with little more than a high school education, are not the ones making $61 an hour.

According to Morris, they're earning $10 to $12 an hour, many without health insurance. The ones pocketing the "overhead" are the agencies.

Let me also note that for the truly mentally ill, trips to the mall, or to the library, can be important tools for encouraging human interaction. They are therapy trips.

But not when the clients aren't even sick.

Yesterday, in Day 2 of the Mental Disorder series, came the story of Dominion Healthcare Services, a private provider peddling "mentoring" for the undiagnosed, rather than providing therapy for the seriously needy.

Astonishingly, the state claims it can do nothing to halt this sort of abuse.

And since the state forced the counties out of the business of managing care, the counties' hands are tied as well. (This, while the stated goal of mental-health reform was to care for the mentally ill as close as possible to their own communities.)

All the county can do to combat a lousy provider is send out a note saying something along the lines of, "Wake County is not referring clients to [insert name of provider here]."

"We can suggest, that's all," Morris said. "We offer our recommendations and hope."

Morris can only shake his head at what has happened to the mental-health system in the name of reform.

And while his predictions turned out to be pretty accurate, Morris derives no satisfaction from the news. He thinks the focus in mental health has been too much on strategy and not enough on outcomes. Outcomes, as in people.

"The mentally ill aren't just numbers," Morris said. "These are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and care."

It shouldn't take a divinity degree for someone to understand that.