Spartanburg, South Carolina – Series of setbacks, caseloads, budget cuts are creating more problems among mental health care providers and counselors.
The Spartanburg Area Mental Health Center (SAMHC) is experiencing a drastic arrival of problems when it comes to mental health care services. This is due to a series of caseloads, budget cuts, and setbacks. There has been an influx of people who are seeking for mental health care, thus, the center continually finds ways of providing sufficient services for patients. Other agencies and urgent care clinics are also stepping up in order to fill the gaps.
The center is a South Carolina Department of Health division, which provides services to Cherokee, Spartanburg, and Union Cities. Most SAMHC counselors are taking between 100 and 150 patients with mental health issues, who need urgent care and immediate treatment. The figure nearly doubles the state’s recommended limit for the appropriate number of caseloads.
A request for records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicated that the center accepted almost 2,400 new patients in the year 2014 alone. The number is almost triple compared to the past year, according to an official. Additionally, the number of employees in the health center has been reduced considerably within the recent years.
Assistant Director Elizabeth Boaze emphasized the series of caseloads, budget cuts in the division has also been reduced by almost 40% since 2007. The agency had gone into insufficiency after building the new facility in 2001 in Spartanburg. Boaze also pointed out that health care coverage has changed, leading to smaller Medicaid revenues for the agency. To reduce the budget, positions were also cut, which resulted in a smaller staff of medical, clinical, and support personnel in handling caseloads.
Although the budget of the urgent care clinic has allowed filling vacant positions and creating new positions, the salary offerings were not appealing to employees. Current records also show job vacancies for counselors, nurses, and specialists.
Boaze pointed out the difficulty of finding master counselors with adequate experience, compared to a McDonald’s staff. She also added the center is looking for means to fill the patient needs as they would need an urgent care near me facility with sufficient services.
The agency installed equipment last week so as to perform a video conference for patients and Charleston doctors, diagnosing them and responding to their queries remotely. Boaze said the video conference-style system has been widely-used in the industry nowadays, and such system has to be performed due to the current caseloads, budget cuts, and setbacks.
