Newspapers / Jones County Journal (Trenton, … / Sept. 17, 1970, edition 1 / Page 1
Part of Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA GUILTY OF GROSS WRONG IN HARASSMENT OF FAMILIES OF SICK Hospital Patient* Dix / 2779 Broughton, 2,250 West Carolina 698 C harry 2,461 O'Barry 1,175 Umstead 1,800 Munfoch 1,521 Caawall 1,800 Wright 21 1 TOTALS 12705 it AuAHaaMM MWrVQVI Par Patient State Budget Patient Foes Capita Cost Coat $7,819,666 $1,158770 $3795 $558 6768798 1,115,180 3789 646 4,107792 380780 5743 453 7732,185 574755 5,140 367 4714785 ' 233796 3762 317 5795,015 860700 3793 890 5756778 475,928 4772 375 5789789 488,935 3743 349 206,196 19750 10,475 926 $47789700 $5,206,294 *$4764 *$531 by Jack Rider This month the families of those unfortunate 14,305. pa tients in the state’s mental hos pitals had a painful injury add ed to the grevous suffering they already bear. This came in the form of a mimeographed letter informing them, that the charge for pa tients was being boosted by over 342 per cent! The charge per patient day was being skyrocked from $3.50 per day to $12 per day, and without prior notice, legislative act or announcement by the gov ernor’s office. Four years ago the state de partment of mental health, in one of its moments of poor men tal health decided to increase the burden of those families un lucky enough to have a patient in any of the state’s mental hos pitals. This was another of those silently voted, unpubliciz ed low blows at people who had alerady suffered more than their fair share in having a family member with a congeni tal mental problem or mental sickness later in. life. When this venture into cal loused fiscal affairs landed in the laps of unsuspecting people in every corner of the state they were frightened and then mad dened! to be billed for many =THE JONES COUNTY OURNAL NUMBER 15 TRENTON, N. C., THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1970 VOLUME XVHI Jones County's Ninth Traffic Death lit 1970 Claims Charles D. Thigpen An accident Saturday night on Rural Paved Road 1300 six mil es west of Trenton caused the ninth traffic death of the year in Jones County.’ Patrolman C. W. Oakley says 37 year-old Charles Douglas Thigpen of Trenton route 2 died in the single-car accident. Thigpen’s car hit a bridge a cross Trent River, knocking some 40 feet of the wooden bridge railing off and plunging the car iiito the river. It is estimated1 that the acci dent took place at about 3:30 a.m. Sunday, but the discovery of the wreckage did not come until about 7 Sunday morning. Jones County Coroner George Davenport says it is his opinion that Thigpen was killed in the crash and did not dSe from drowning. SWINSON ON USS SEATTLE Navy Petty Officer Third Class Larry L. Swinson, of Pollocks ville, departed Norfolk, Va., on August 27, 1970, for the Medi terranean aboard the fast com bat support ship USS Seattle. By means of the latest ship-to-ship transfer systems, the Seattle will transfer over nine million gal lons of liquid fuels and five '1 thousand tons of cargo, ammuni tion and1 missiles to ships operat ing with the Sixth Fleet. WADSWORTH IN VIETNAM Corporal Wfflliam R. Wads . worth, of Route 1, Trenton, par ticipated in Operation Barrren Green while serving with the First Marine Battalion in Viet nam. The mission was conducted about 17 miles southwest of Da nang to curb, enemy harvest op erations. Open House at State University October 10th Exhibits illustrating the many phases of agriculture, life sci ences and forestry will be the focal point of an Open House program at North Carolina State University Saturday, October 10. The Open House is the 12th annual program of the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the School of Forest Re sources. High school students, their advisors, parents and teachers from the Tar Heel state’s 100 counties are expect ed to attend. Exhibits in Rynolds <Joiiseum will illustrate the programs of study available in the two school’s 23 departments. Visitors can see how sods are used to remove impurities from our wa ter supply; look inside the sto mach of a steer watch a demon stration of the process of con verting wood to paper; and learn how bacteria are used to pro duce the food we eat. The students can also visit with University administrators and faculty members for informa tion on entrance requirements and financial aid. N. C. State stu dents will be available to ans wer campus life and student ac tivities. Registration wm oegin at iu:du a m. in Reynolds Coliseum and the exhibits will remain open until 3 p.m. Faculty members will be on hand in various de partments of the two schools af ter registration to answer ques tions. s The day’s program will end with the N. C. State Wdfpack football team meeting East Carolina Uni versity at Carter Stadium. Th* mfor the game at i Gilbert Reunion The 39th annual reunion of the Jones County branch of the Gilbert family is to be held Sunday at hady Grove Metho dist Church in Jones County and all members of that numerous clan are urged to arrive on time at rp.m.’and to come as usual, armed with that well-filled pic nic basket. One Divorce, Two Debt Suits Filed In Jones Courts Jones County Court Clerk Rog ers Pollock reports three civil actions having been filed in his office during the past week, in cluding one divorce suit and two suits for alleged debts. In the divorce action Julia Dove Poole asks divorce from James Michael Poole of Lewis burg, Pennsylvania on grounds of more than one year separa tion. The suit alleges their mar riage April 16, 1966, their sep aration May 29, 1969 and their parentage of two children ages two and three, who are now liv ing with their mother in Jones County. The debt actions were filed by Southern Discount Company of New Bern against Travis Mead ows of Maysville seeking to col lect $333.50 and the other was by Provident Finance Company which asks judgment against Thomas and Elvora Murphy in the amount of $197. NOBLES IN ENGLAND Air Force Sergeant Roy C. No bles, son of Mrs. Rena Baker of Route 1, Dover, has arrived for duty at Northolt RAF Station, England. Sgt. Nobles is an air craft maintenance specialist with a unit of the Air Forces in Europe, America’s overseas air arm assigned to NATO. The sergeant, who previously served at Afconbury RAF Station, Eng land, is a 1966 graduate of New bold High School, Dover. His father, Roy W. Mitchell, resides on Route 1, Dover. ififeSIs years of so-called pastdue pay ments on an account they did not know was running and for a service they thought their tax dollar was underwriting. Individuals received bills in the tens of thousands of dollars for brothers, sisters, children, or parerfts who had been in state institutions for many years. As bad as this first blow was it was nothing to compare with this year’s more than tripling of this charge. f This tabulation included with this article shows how varied and how ineffective this offical harassment of unfortunate cit izens really is. Out of a total state budget appropriation of $47,489,600 for the present fiscal year the nine mental hospitals and schools an ticipate additional income of $5, 206,295 from families of the pa tients making a total budget of $52,693,894. his reflects that 9.8 per cent of the operating costs of these nine institutions is underwritten by these payments for patients. But there is a wide variation in the rate of payments per hos pital, with patients at Broughton have 14.1 per cent of the operat ing costs of the hospital under Local 1% Sales Tax Collections Listed For August County Buncombe Camden Chowan Clay Cumberland Currituck Duplin Durham Greene Hertford Jackson Jones Lenoir Macon Madison Mecklenburg New Hanover Onslow Pamlico Pasquotank Perquimans Richmond Swain Tyrrell Watauga Wayne Total Net Collections $245,088.41 1,806.99 11,824.18 3,670.76 227,264.50 4,508.88 32,193.61 214,626.41 7,348.92 25.309.06 21,315.45 3,754.03 79,987.48 27,696.01 6,164.48 578,274.80 165,381.67 76,997.05 4,885.90 35,535.16 6,290.63 47,863.43 11,993.08 2,627.84 44,933.38 93.002.07 $1,980,344.18 Seven Cases Heard In Court Sessions During the past week Jones County courts have cleared sev en' cases from the criminal cal endar. Ronnie Farrow and Theodore Williams Jr. were each given a suspended 18-month jail term and put on probation for five years on payment of a $100 fine each for receiving stolen proper ty. James Everette had a one-year jail -term suspended for driving while his license was revoked on condition of paying a $200 firte and remaining on proba tion two years. Roland Paylor Jr. paid a $5 fine and costs for speeding, John DuBose paid costs for operating across the center line, John A. Davis paid1 a $10 fine and costs for speeding and William Arm stead forfeited a $140 cash bond he was under for drunken driv ing and carrying, a concealed weapon. c ' ir'-'; , ' \ . written by their payments rang ing down to O’Berry Center where payments for patients ac count for just 5.4 per cent of the total operating costs. But the variation from hos pital to hospital within the nine facilities of the department of mental health is not the crux of the matter, which is the general taxation while called upon to un derwrite other public hospitals and correctional institutions does not carry the total load in the mental institutions. Gravely Sanitorium at Chapel Hill collects $24,400 from patients on a $947,443 budget, Eastern North Carolina Sani torium collects $108,000 from patients on a budget of $2,186, 007, Western North Carolina Sanitorium collects from pa tients $130,050 on a budget of $1,775,129, North Carolina San itorium collects $174,600 on a budget of $1,888,184, North Car olina Cerebral Palsy Hospital collects $500 from patients on a budget of $347,515, North'Car olina Orthopedic Hospital col lects nothing from patients on a budget of $824,501. All of which points up the in consistancy of overall state pol icy which penalizes the parents or family of one unfortunate patient while patronizing some other unfortunate’s parents or family. Most basically the most wrong with the entire business of charging some, harassing oth ers and not charging other is that when it becomes the ma jority feeling of the citizenry and its elected leaders that gov ernment should move into a giv en field of service; then those services should be provided from the general revenues and if the elective leaders feel there is not sufficient revenue to pro vide such services then this should be made known to the people. Harassing the families of pa tients in mental hospitals with bills they cannot possibly pay and daily charges that are ab surd on their face is unbecom ing to a government that oper ates with a fat surplus and at present is collecting in excess of $10 million dollars more per month above its revenues for the same month last year (the August report of Revenue Com missioner I. L. Clayton reports August collections as being an increase of $10,030,206 over Au gust of ’69). Not much more than half of this single month’s in creased revenues would wipe out this inequity and insult that is added to the injury more than 14,000 families have suffered at the hands of nature which has given them mentally disturbed or mentall retarded children. io cnarge a parent such a tee as $12 per day in such a circum stance is comparable to sending a bereaved parent a board bill for a child who has gone astray and been sent to prison. There is the further reflec tion that the small per cent of families who do make the sac rifice and try to meet these ar bitrarily fixed fees also pay high personal taxes which are in turn used to pay for the ful costs of those patients whose families either cannot or will not make any effort in this direction. There is this further reflec tion: That $12 per day adds up to $4,380 per year and only three of the state institutions for mental diseases is spending that much money on each pa tient, as the tabulation with this article shows. Viewed from every angle the state’s position in this business is unfair, unreasonable and un necessary.
Jones County Journal (Trenton, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 17, 1970, edition 1
1
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75