LIHU‘E — CARE Hawai‘i, a private entity offering mental-health services on Kaua‘i, has closed some portions of those services on the island, state Department of Health officials confirmed. Janice Okubo, state DOH spokesperson, said the Kaua‘i Community Mental Health Center
LIHU‘E — CARE Hawai‘i, a private entity offering mental-health services on Kaua‘i, has closed some portions of those services on the island, state Department of Health officials confirmed.
Janice Okubo, state DOH spokesperson, said the Kaua‘i Community Mental Health Center on Kuhio Highway has absorbed some of the former CARE Hawai‘i clients. About 30 patients are affected.
Closed is CARE Hawai‘i’s psychosocial rehabilitation program, which operated like a school where clients learned about medication management and other self-care strategies, and the community-based care-management program, a general case-management service.
CARE Hawai‘i continues to offer its crisis mobile outreach service, akin to a 911 service for some Kaua‘i mentally ill residents, and a crisis support management program (30-day, short-term case management), said a Kaua‘i CARE Hawai‘i employee who spoke on condition on anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the changes.
Repeated efforts to reach Maria Kinsler, CARE Hawai‘i chief executive officer, were unsuccessful.
Okubo said CARE Hawai‘i leaders sent a letter to the DOH in mid-May saying they wanted to terminate the psychosocial rehabilitation program, effective May 31, and the state agreed.
She said crisis support management services previously offered by CARE Hawai‘i have also been taken over by state DOH mental health services, also effective in the middle of May.
“We absorbed those clients,” Okubo said.
The Kaua‘i Community Mental Health Center has the staff and facilities to absorb the 30 CARE clients, but CARE Hawai‘i was much more mobile and able to respond quickly, even on routine matters like getting clients to various appointments on time, said the local CARE Hawai‘i employee.
It’s sad, because lots of clients had to return to state DOH services, and some didn’t want to, he said.
Okubo said that, even before the state budget deficit crisis, state DOH leaders were looking at ways to cut costs by reducing numbers of contracts they give out for services they might be able to provide themselves.
CARE Hawai‘i still offers drug and alcohol abuse treatment services on Kaua‘i, out of offices in the old Lihu‘e Plantation Building.
CARE Hawai‘i’s mental-health services office is in Harbor Mall in Nawiliwili.
• Paul C. Curtis, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com
