Thursday, October 23, 2003

Report on mental health services cites crisis (Pennsylvania)
Pittsburgh Post Gazette story - "A new report examining delivery of mental health and mental retardation services calls it a 'building crisis' of lengthy waiting lists among clients and high turnover and care quality problems among staffs. The Keystone Research Center, a Harrisburg group backed by labor organizations, issued the report yesterday focusing on the MH-MR system in Allegheny County as well as statewide. It cited numerous problems relating to services to 40,000 Allegheny County residents with mental illness and nearly 10,000 with mental retardation. Many relate to staffing issues, a widely documented problem throughout the human services field in terms of low pay and difficulty finding suitable workers." A discussion draft of the final report (in Adobe Acrobat format) is available at the Keystone Research Center's web site.