Mental hospital needed in Rome
A letter in July, “Reopen Northwest Georgia Regional Hospital,” was the smartest and best I’ve read in a long time. It made no sense when the state closed the hospital doors.
It’s a sad day when people in need of those mental health services were locked up at Floyd County Jail and in lockdown and not put in anything but a paper gown, locked in a padded room in restraints and fed a nasty loaf of all the leftover food of a couple days as punishment.
People with mental health issues can not help themselves and are in need of care by trained professionals. Their needs are so varied that no one can expect jail officers to care for them. Other inmates had to listen to their pitiful screams for days because they had nowhere to put them where they would not be hurt by other inmates. Except medical and lockdown.
Let’s hope the new mental health part of the jail is what it should be. But why would the powers that be allow the state to close the doors to NWGRH to begin with? There were three criminally insane units housed on the grounds of the hospital. Now tell me just how many jailers, officers or people in the community are willing to take these patients on? Not many, if any.
Seems to me, hands down, what is needed the most on the grounds of NWGRH is NWGRH.
Money should never be the issue when it affects so many lives in our community. Not only the ill but also the very many who have to cover the 24 hours of care for their loved ones. Someone please help this community, the loved ones of the mentally disturbed who cannot afford to pay someone to help in their care, and the ones in need of the doctors, pathologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, the many other professional staff and caregivers who were employed at this great facility.
If there is anyone that agrees that our community is in need of this, please speak up. I sure hope everyone realizes the importance of this. What if it were your mother, your sibling or your child? Bet that would get the hospital reopened very quickly, if the truth be told.
Rome