Haywood Regional Medical Center, a Duke LifePoint hospital, is doing its part to meet the growing mental health needs in the region by expanding its behavioral health unit for adults and geriatric patients.

Two years ago, David was a different person than he is today. At 14 years old, his moods rapidly bounced around from extreme feelings of anger to unbridled energy. He couldn’t concentrate at school and didn’t understand why he couldn’t control his emotions.

When Margo Capparelli, Ph.D., first began her career, she had little idea that it would develop such a strong focus on helping combat veterans that she would one day drop everything to found a retreat center serving them.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. Capparelli, 53, is founder of Equinox Ranch, located on 23 acres in Cullowhee that she hopes to get in shape to begin operations by late spring or early summer in 2018.

The shortcomings of America’s mental health system have once again been brought to the forefront as national news outlets report the shooters responsible for recent mass killings in Las Vegas and Texas were mentally ill.

SEE ALSO: Waynesville treatment center expands mental health services

Medical experts say there’s no real connection between individuals with mental illness and mass shootings, but the presumed link between the two reveals the real reason why the mental health system is in such dire straits — we still don’t understand enough about mental illness.

The Balsam Center in Waynesville will now be able to better meet the mental health and substance abuse needs of Haywood County residents following an extensive renovation and expansion.

It’s been a month since the contract between Mission Health and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina expired, leaving thousands of people in Western North Carolina to pay higher out-of-network prices to stay with Mission providers.

Mission Hospital’s decision to let its contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield expire has resulted in increased business for Harris Regional Hospital, with patient admissions this October up about 20 percent over numbers from October 2016.

A brand new emergency department at Harris Regional Hospital in Sylva received its first patients Monday, Nov. 6, marking the end of a project that’s been more than a decade in the making.

Angel Medical Center has been located in downtown Franklin for 60 years, but hospital officials are looking into the possibility of building a new facility out on U.S. 441.

Like placing a bandage over a deep wound and hoping it will just go away, opiate painkillers are prescribed to a growing number of Americans each year. Unfortunately, these medications do not address the true cause of the pain and often lead down a dark path.