Mountain
Comprehensive Care Center
Region
XI Mental Health/Mental Retardation Board
HISTORICAL
OVERVIEW
In a special message to Congress on February 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy recommended a new national program for mental health and another to combat mental retardation. This marked the first time in history that a president of the United States had presented a special message to Congress on the subjects of mental health and mental retardation.
The
Community Mental Health Centers Act of 1963 (PL 88-164) provided the opportunity
to give prompt and effective treatment to patients within the geographic area in
which they live through a series of required services.
This Act emphasized the comprehensiveness of services and continuity of
care. It also provided an opportunity to develop focal points for
indirect services in mental health education.
Interlocked with other community and federal projects, community mental
health centers expand the range of choices for the patients and accelerate the
return of the vast majority of patients to normal living.
Kentucky
Community Mental Health Centers came into being as a result of the following
legislation: Kentucky Revised
Statutes 210.370 states “Any combination of cities and counties over 50,000
population … or counties with less than 50,000 population, may establish a
regional community mental health services program.”
Using
the above noted legislation for a basis for existence, the story of Mountain
Mental Health Services (now Mountain Comprehensive Care Center, Inc.) began in
1963. Eastern State Hospital in Lexington proposed establishing a
demonstration team to serve four Eastern Kentucky mountain counties: Pike,
Floyd, Martin and Johnson. For
approximately six years, the hospital sent a psychiatrist and social worker to
Pikeville, the largest city in the area and county seat of the largest county,
two days a month to hold a clinic for former Eastern State Hospital patients.
Hazel Price, Director of Social Services at Eastern State Hospital in
Lexington found that she was working with some patients repeatedly.
She felt that a resident team consisting of a psychiatrist, social worker
and psychiatric nurse could deal more effectively with the problems of patients
who had left the hospital, could screen out and get local care for many patients
who would otherwise have to be hospitalized, and might stimulate some interest
across the region in developing a mental health facility of its own.
Ms. Price, Dr. Logan Gragg, Jr., superintendent of Eastern State Hospital
initiated a plan that won National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) support of
approximately $25,000 a year for a four-year demonstration project named
“Pikeville Demonstration Project”. The
three member team’s office was known as the Mental Health Clinic and consisted
of several rent-free rooms in the basement of the Pike County Health Department
building located between the county jail and parking lot.
As
word spread that professional mental health leadership was available, support
from the community began to grow. During
the second year of the project, the Mountain Mental Health Association was
formed in Pike County and membership reached 500.
The association’s meetings were headed by the late Eugene Lopez,
Administrator of Pikeville’s hospital and were attended by fifteen civic club
leaders. The aim was, with State
and Federal help, to establishing a permanent mental health facility in
Pikeville. As the Kentucky State
Mental Health Centers plan developed, Pike County was able to establish a
regional mental health center to serve a five county area consisting of Pike,
Floyd, Johnson, Martin and Magoffin counties.
Initial
grant monies consisted of the original $25,000 NIMH Grant and an additional
$18,000 planning grant through the Kentucky Mental Health Foundation which was
supervised by Eastern State Hospital. Originally chartered as the Twentieth
Regional Mental Health/Mental Retardation Board, Inc. the name of the
organization was changed in 1972 to Region XI Mental Health/Mental Retardation
Board, Inc., and did business as Mountain Mental Health and Mountain
Comprehensive Care Center. In 1997,
the Board voted to change the official name of the organization to Mountain
Comprehensive Care Center, Inc.
The
period from
the Pikeville Demonstration Project of 1962 to the Mountain Comprehensive Care
Center services of today has been a period of unforeseen growth and development.
In April of 1962 the center employed 3 staff with a caseload of
approximately 150 clients and an annual budget or $25,000.
During the past fifteen years the number of staff employed has increased
to approximately 400 full time staff with a caseload of over 6,000 clients and
an annual budget of over 15 million dollars.