Voice of OC (https://voiceofoc.org/tag/mental-health/)
A contract dispute between Magellan Healthcare and CalOptima, the county’s health plan for low-income and elderly residents, may have left some of CalOptima’s 710,000 patients without mental health care when, for nine days in July, Magellan refused to process Medi-Cal payment claims.
Santa Ana’s detainees now are held at county jails, leaving over 300 empty beds at the city jail. Most City Council members said they want to consider a mental health facility.
The county Board of Supervisors this week approved plans to open a facility in Garden Grove that will treat patients, including children, who are experiencing mental health crisis. Scheduled to open in December, the facility will address the county’s acute shortage of psychiatric beds.
The state may shutter a 114-acre property that currently houses developmentally disabled adults. Homeless advocates, and a state senator, say the property should be re-purposed as a center for homeless people and others who need temporary housing and mental health services.
Mental health advocates are hopeful the 21st Century CURES Act will be a positive and new direction for mental health care.
Could the state’s aging mental health campus in Costa Mesa, Fairview Developmental Center, be the key toward improving mental health outcomes out on the streets of Orange County?
Candidates for seats on the Santa Ana Unified School District board delved into issues like expanding mental health support for students and the need to end the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline”
A new Halloween horror attraction that opened last week at Knott’s Berry Farm has drawn criticism from advocates who say it includes offensive and dehumanizing depictions of mental health patients.
For years, local political leaders largely ignored Orange County’s severe shortage of psychiatric beds, which has contributed to, among other things, the current homelessness crisis. But they are beginning to direct their policymaking to the problem.
Andrew Do was absent for all but two of the 12 meetings in the year after he joined the panel last February. The rules say he should have been removed after four missed meetings. But the supervisors are considering exempting Do from the rules.