Speaking of Mental Health–Virginia has a Crisis
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9 responses to “Speaking of Mental Health–Virginia has a Crisis”
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Dick, we have all those training centers around Virginia being phased out (aka “closed”) due to Virginia’s settlement with the US DOJ over conditions there; and I’ve personally driven through the Central Virginia Training Center just north of Lynchburg which has a striking, yet depressing, largely-now-abandoned, campus. Why can’t the better, newer buildings in these facilities be re-directed to use for mental health treatment? Wouldn’t converting these campuses be a heck of a lot cheaper than rebuilding Central State where it is, or replacing it from scratch elsewhere, as well as better for the communities where they are located? Here’s a picture of the main building at the CVTC:
https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/richmond.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/c/99/c991b694-68cc-5959-ae2d-c4736e9a8da2/5d23e0faa29ec.image.jpg?resize=750%2C496-
Acbar, the population served by the training centers is different from that served by the mental health hospitals. Nevertheless, your question is valid and I don’t have an answer. I will pose it to my contacts in that area.
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NVTC (Northern Virginia Training Center) is being redeveloped as a residential community I believe: Erickson Living is proposing a new age-restricted continuing care retirement community on the site of the former NVTC following its closure and sale from the Commonwealth.
My non-profit group used to go there periodically for a volunteer actvity before the closure, which we enjoyed that service actvity. -
I just hate to see the usual objections to State institutional infrastructure development — which have already been overcome in the communities that host these obsolete State Training Centers — get raised once again to block the new mental health facilities that are so badly needed. Here are facilities that are: large, already built out, even sometimes impressive, with State employees already hired and resident nearby, with local governments used to their presence — and yet they are being abandoned, sold off, for reasons that have nothing to do with their physical inadequacy. See TBill below. Let’s recycle them instead.
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I realize that this reply is a little late (I have been out of town). I, too, hate to see older buildings demolished or not reused. I have not been able to get any sense of whether DBHDS considered renovating the training centers and using them for mental health patients. However, and unfortunately, I have learned over the years that it is often just as expensive, and sometimes more expensive, to renovate and upgrade an older building, as it is to construct a new building, designed especially for the new function. Another factor in the equation is the State’s ability to sell the former property, thereby offsetting some of the cost of the new construction. (Granted, that does not help the staffs of the training centers in Lynchburg and other places.)
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Dick,
Good post! I know that mental health in the state is a mess and that Central State is an atrocity. There are something like 40 Community Service Boards around the state that provide treatment in neighborhoods but their quality and services range widely in quality. They are the first line of help.Here is a piece on the matter I did a year ago in the Post
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Thanks, Peter. The CSBs are on my list for a post. Your WP article is a good summary of the problems that face the system. I should have just plagiarized it.
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Thank you for raising this issue. I’d like to add that the TDO patient is often shuffled to a state hospital 100+ miles from home. The patient, already in crises, temporarily loses access to their usual doctor, social workers, family members, etc. Ultimately, the state hospital offloads the patient to a (usually backlogged) CSB, which refers the patient to still more (usually backlogged) agencies and organizations, none of which are responsible for the individuals long-term outcomes. I don’t have the answers, but suspect provider compensation practices might be a piece of the puzzle.
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ETeam blue, in the quest to end the reign of the bad orange man, is promising Medicare for all (with all including anyone in the entire world citizenship be damned). That being the case I would hope they would be smart enough to consider building about 10 times as many beds as are currently available. Based on rhetoric I can also see the day when legally crime isn’t considered crime but instead restorative justice will dictate that those men are suffering from trauma and instead of prison must be treated for their mental illness at tax payers expense. In that scenario the state will need a lot more beds.
The coming blue wave is going to be something to behold if everyone is cursed by receiving what they think they want. The bottom will fall out and the only way to try to fix it will be crushing tax increases.
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