Mental Health

I am an employee of the state of Alabama at the Mary Starke Harper Geriatric Psychiatry Center in Tuscaloosa. It is on the Bryce Hospital Campus and is a part of the State Mental Health/Retardation Department.  People over age 65 with dementia and Alzheimer’s are treated here. The length of stay is approximately 90 days and with proper treatment these patients may be returned to their families, transferred to an assisted living facility or nursing home closer to family. We accept patients from all over the state so there must be a way to transport to and from. We are in desperate need of our own wheelchair van. Bryce Hospital has a van service that operates vans for other mental health facilities as well as Harper.

We may need to transport a patient to the hospital for X-rays that are needed that day or the patient cannot be placed in the facility located for him or her. But if the van is transporting other patients, our patient may have to wait. It may be weeks before another bed is found.

I know as Alabama Baptists we banded together to defeat the lottery. At the legislative prayer breakfast the governor asked us to band together and help in other ways.

Now is the time to band together again. Let people know what a caring and compassionate people affiliated with the Baptist name can be.

If each member of an Alabama Baptist church would give $1 per resident member to a van fund, and an association give just $10 per church, a $40,000–$50,000 van is not out of reach. Nothing is too big for our God to handle.

You may say this is a state of Alabama problem, but aren’t we the state of Alabama?

If you think this is a worthwhile project, you may send your contributions, however small, to the Mary Starke Harper Geriatric Psychiatry Center, 200 University Boulevard, P.O. Box 21231, Tuscaloosa, AL 35402, Attention: Sarah Mitchell, business manager, van fund. If your Girls in Action, Acteens, Royal Ambassadors or Woman’s Missionary Union is looking for a missions project, please contact John Varley, recreation specialist, at the same address. He will give you a list of things they need.

Janice Guin
Fayette, Ala.