One environmentalist's thoughts on the Dix debacle

I know it's a cause near and dear to the hearts of many of my environmentally minded friends here in Raleigh, but the campaign to convert the Dorothea Dix Hospital property near downtown into a park hasn't gotten a great deal of attention here at Raleigh Eco News.

That's because I've been conflicted about the proposal.

On the one hand, I do think we need to increase public open space in our fast-growing city -- and there's a certain poetic justice in converting an old mental hospital into a health-enhancing place like a park. After all, science has found that access to nature via parks plays a critical if still not fully understood role in human health and development. Some think that addiction, for example, may sometimes represent an attempt to fill the void left by the loss of contact with nature.

But on the other hand -- maybe because I'm a social worker by training -- I can't help but worry about how we will meet the local community's mental health care needs. Deepening my worry was the News & Observer's outstanding recent series on the state's botched mental health privatization effort, which introduced us to people like Johnnie P. Yarborough:

In 2006, the 47-year-old Yarborough, suffering from bipolar disorder and addicted to crack cocaine, was so desperate for treatment that he beat on the doors of state-run Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and a private mental hospital, seeking to be admitted.

Because of the 2001 reform law, treatment once offered by Wake County's mental health agency had become spotty or nonexistent. Yarborough was admitted to Dix 14 times during 2006, but never for more than a few days. He began fearing that he might commit a murder. He's drug-free now and working, but that's thanks to the nonprofit Raleigh Rescue Mission, where he now lives.

It's bad enough for someone in need of health care to be reduced to pounding on a hospital door. But now we want to eliminate even that lousy option and force ill Raleigh residents to go to a new facility 30 miles away, Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

And as it turns out, there are still serious problems at Central Regional. With patients expected to start arriving by the middle of next month, the $120 million facility still has a host of safety hazards -- including hundreds of door handles and bathroom handrails that present risks for the suicidal, as the N&O reported this week.

State mental health workers rallied today against the Dix closure plans, calling them a "disaster in the making," according to the paper:

"This is our Katrina,” said Beverly Moriarity, a nurse who helps coordinate staffing at Dix. "This is a train wreck waiting to happen. The administration knows it’s going to be a catastrophe and they’re moving ahead anyway. I don’t understand it."

State employees say they're worried about expected shortfalls in the numbers of nurses, doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists needed at the facility. They're also concerned about the readiness of the staff that has been hired, since their orientation consisted of a two-hour walk through one floor of the building and a packet of instructions to read at home. To date, they have received no training on using the computer system, securing medications, or evacuating in case of fire.

They're also rattled by the long commute to Butner -- especially given the rising price of fuel:

"Half of my salary would go to gas," said Floyd Mims, a health care technician. The starting pay for his job is less than $11 an hour.

I think it's become clear that closing Dix doesn't make sense from a strictly human perspective. But neither do I think it makes sense from a broader ecological perspective to demolish a local treatment facility and force patients and staff to commute to a new one 30 miles away.

My dream is that Raleigh's conservationists, state mental health workers, mental health advocates, and mental health patients and their families would join forces to keep Dix open -- and turn it into a world-class park. With a campus of more than 300 acres, there's room for both. Let's make Dix into a place that continues to care for patients in need and also enhances the well being of the wider community.

(Dix property photo by Karen Tam from Friends of Dix Web site)

Documenting natural Raleigh

I recently found out about a terrific blog about our city. Called Raleigh Nature, it's set to become a book called The Natural History of Raleigh: Nature Lore & Wildlife Inside or Near the Beltline. The author is John Dancy-Jones, whose fine papermaking work at The Paper Plant was recently profiled by the News & Observer. Born in 1953, John grew up in Raleigh's then-new Gatewood subdivision (next door to where I live now in Lockwood), and developed an abiding love of parks, the paths that would later become greenways, and even the so-called "waste places" where nature peeks out from the city's hard edges.

John already has another book under his belt; in 2001, he published Snapper: My life with snapping turtles. A chapbook essay about captive snapping turtles, it was written, illustrated using linoleum-block prints, and physically produced on a letterpress at the Paper Plant. Fred Chappell, North Carolina's poet laureate, praised Snapper as a "lovely" papermaking project and a "highly personal but still widely educational" work. It's not surprising that John's book projects would be educational: His work teaching papermaking to children led to a part-time job teaching students with learning problems and a master's in education from N.C. State. John now teaches science full time.

Here's how he describes his fascination with our city's natural side -- a fascination that's beautifully communicated in the stories and images on his blog:

Raleigh has one of the nation’s best and most prominent greenway systems. In, addition we retain some of the best aspects of Southern towns -- ready access to rural settings, and a real connection to the land, as partly evidenced by the growing popularity of the sustainable, heritage agriculture movement. We love our nature, whether it's jogging the greenways or hunting doves, and the wildlife and natural areas are treasures important to people of all political persuasions. This blog explores those interests through the eyes of an amateur but well-informed naturalist, concentrating on resources inside or within a mile of the beltline.

It's definitely worth a bookmark for anyone who loves our Capital City.

(Photo of and by John Dancy-Jones from Raleigh Nature.)