Services to mentally ill, addicted said vital to Catholic health care

Published: 2006-06-09

ORLANDO, Fla. (CNS) -- Faithfulness to Jesus' healing ministry requires Catholic health care institutions to offer comprehensive behavioral health services and mandates that "everyone comes in the front door," Catholic health leaders heard June 5. Staff members at St. Mary's Hospital in Amsterdam, N.Y., offered an "innovation forum" on their community mental health center program, founded in 1975 and now made up of 33 hospital- and community-based programs in mental health and addictions. Opening the session, John R. Kelley, vice president for behavioral health at St. Mary's, said many did not realize how those with mental illness or addictions "have been shunned over the years and why people just don't want them." Many institutions take a "back-door" approach to those patients, keeping them segregated from other patients. But at St. Mary's all patients come through the front door and use the same elevators and cafeteria, even if it makes some people uncomfortable, Kelley said.

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