NOLA Media Group prints what looks like a response to James Gill from a Jindal PR flack
in a space where one would expect to see an editorial correction. At the bottom of a James Gill column on Nagin we find this blurb.
Spending on mental health higher: Sunday's column suggested that,
because of budget cuts, treatment of
mental illness had "pretty much gone by the wayside" in Louisiana.
Spending on mental health is 30 percent higher than it was when Jindal
took office in 2008, according to his spokesman.
"According to his spokesman" Anybody want to
fact check this assertion before running it in this space?
In 2010, the city released an analysis of psychiatric bed capacity in
New Orleans compared to five other similarly sized and situated U.S.
cities: Atlanta, Cleveland, Memphis, Tenn., St. Louis and Washington,
DC.
At that time, the report found, there were 165 inpatient psych beds
in New Orleans, a rate of 46.5 per 100,000 population — down from 364
total and 78.9 per 100,000 pre-Katrina. Of those, 60 were adult
inpatient beds — fewer than the 77 at Charity Hospital alone prior to
August 2005 — 16.9 per 100,000 population. Of course, these numbers were
based on a slightly inflated pre-Census estimate population of about
354,000. Based on the actual 2010 population of 343,000, the rate is
about 17.5 adult beds per 100,000.
The disparity was huge, the report found, compared to those other
cities. Atlanta had 100 total beds per 100,000 population, 57.1 adult.
Memphis: 74.7 total/ 63.5 adult. St. Louis: 59.1 total/46.3 adult.
Washington: 62.5 total/52.4 adult. "We're at a huge deficit," says (Cecile) Tebo.
Update: Yesterday, in the Letters To The Editor section (where the Jindal PR factoid should have run)
we find this question.
If the administration's claims are true, then we taxpayers are spending
more money for reduced services. How did that happen? Have the
governor's privatization initiatives increased state payments to private
contractors while reducing services to the people of Louisiana? That
seems to be his agenda, especially in health care and education.
I would refrain from using anything Cecile Tebo says to "Fact Check" anything. She purports to be a mental health advocate, all the while assisting known Coke-head Don Wilkerson in bilking Medicaid, Medicare and the State out of hundreds of thousands of dollars under the cover of Exodus House. The mentally ill of New Orleans and the region are being used by her and her buddy.
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