The overcrowded conditions at Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Huntington have been described as an accident waiting to happen.
But unfortunately, state officials have given little indication how they intend to address the immediate situation or the underlying problems causing overcrowding at the state's psychiatric hospitals.
A report completed last week by the Office of the Ombudsman for Behavioral Health found that the hospital is routinely overcrowded, with three patients often sharing a single room, occasionally with no bathroom.
"Staff believe that the hospital, when it is over-bedded, is an accident waiting to happen," concluded the report, written by David Sudbeck, the state ombudsman for behavioral health. The oversight agency wants the problem fixed in 90 days.
We agree the situation needs immediate attention, but we hope the state will probe beyond a 90-day fix.
West Virginia's network for dealing with chronic cases of mental illness is flawed with various local and state agencies at odds over who is responsible and what the problems are.
In many ways, the story begins several decades ago when West Virginia and many states began to move away from "warehousing" large numbers of patients in psychiatric hospitals.
With improved treatment, experts argued that people suffering from mental illnesses could be treated in much less restrictive environments. In 1981, a class action lawsuit -- Medley vs. Ginsberg -- pushed the state to develop a system of community-based services to handle most of the load.
The two remaining hospitals, Mitchell-Bateman and William R. Sharpe in Weston, would provide treatment and referral services for the rest.
But both hospitals are overcrowded. The two have a combined capacity of 240 beds, but a count last month found 379 patients between them.
While patients can be diverted to private hospitals -- at considerable expense -- staff at Mitchell-Bateman told the ombudsman that private hospitals will not take some patients, particularly those who are difficult or aggressive.
Aggravating the situation, some say, are changes in the way Medicaid reimburses -- or doesn't reimburse -- local behavioral health centers for patient care. In some cases, patients are turned away and shipped to the psychiatric hospitals instead.
And it may well be that the state has simply underestimated the number of beds needed to handle acute and chronic cases. While everyone would like to see patients living at home or in group settings, there are some cases and some instances when an institutional setting is the only answer.
Plans to expand Mitchell-Bateman from 90 to 110 beds were announced last year, but officials this week had no comment on where that project stands. Other suggestions include building a third state hospital for patients coming through the criminal justice system including those found mentally unfit to stand trial.
Providing an adequate balance of community-based services and hospital beds is essential not only for the patients, but also for the emergency rooms, police and other agencies that deal with the spillover in one way or another.
As one patient advocate put it, "It's a situation that absolutely has to change."
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