Some legislators say they want to delay the planned closing of two state hospitals, including Dorothea Dix in Raleigh.
The state Department of Health and Human Services wants to move patients from Dix and John Umstead hospitals into new Central Regional Hospital in Butner in February, Lynn Bonner reports.
Legislators said the department was moving too fast and questioned whether there would be room for people needing help.
Mike Moseley, director of the state mental health division, told legislators that the state planned to keep a 36-bed "overflow" unit at Dix that would be open to patients from the region, in addition to 24 beds for patients from Wake County.
Even if the department finds space for patients in hospitals, overflow units and state alcohol treatment centers, it doesn't mean there are enough people working in those places to properly care for them, said Rep. Jennifer Weiss, a Cary Democrat.
"You can have physical beds," she said. "That doesn't mean you can take care of people."
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