Mark Binker's Aug. 30 story focused on the report by consultant Alice Lin regarding the "transformation" of North Carolina Mental Health.

"In the rush to complete structural changes, the public partners have lost sight of the effect on consumers," the report says. (Binker, Mark, "Mental health services lagging," Greensboro News & Record, 30 Aug. 2007.)

Unfortunately, services have now slipped for six years while the holes in the flow charts are sandbagged. What the article doesn't mention is that county mental health systems are in equal disrepair. These organizations are now responsible for the hands-on treatment abandoned by the state.

"Fundamental disagreements" regarding the state and county responsibilities sounds familiar. That is precisely what happened two years ago on the Gulf Coast. Federal, state and local officials pointed at each other while an entire metropolitan area washed away. Our representatives continue to be more concerned with flowcharts than with human suffering.

Leaks are springing today in the levees that stand between mental health patients and the streets of Greensboro.

Don Ward
Stokesdale