Faraway treatment

It is probably too late to change the outcome of the vote of the Council of State, and Dix Hill will now become a magnet for Raleigh gentry as a place for relaxation and recreation. However, I disagree with the implication in your Nov. 28 editorial “Park prospects” that all patients displaced from Dorothea Dix Hospital now go for treatment at Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

There are actually many destinations across the state of North Carolina for Central North Carolina residents needing mental health treatment. With the implementation of three-way hospital contracts by the Department of Health and Human Services, many more patients are finding themselves spending hours or even days waiting for a psych bed in a community hospital many miles from their home county.

For kids and adolescents, the plight is even worse. Many are now finding a trip to another state, such as Virginia, to get proper treatment after the closing of the units at Dix that served their age groups.

I am less interested in which political party is to blame for the sad saga of Dix Hill than in who should feel shame for letting an exemplary state-owned institution be dismantled. There is plenty of both blame and shame to go around our state’s government.

Martha Brock

Cary