This past week has been a sad one for understanding how we, as a society, treat our less fortunate fellow human beings. Human beings who are homeless. Human beings who have a mental illness. Human beings who may be our friends, our family members, even ourselves.
First up is College Hospital. College Hospital Costa Mesa is a “JCAHO accredited, 122 bed facility that provides high quality medical, surgical and psychiatric care,” according to their website. I assume that after this incident, they will lose their JCAHO accreditation (another sign that such accreditation is meaningless in actually finding serious institutional problems in the facilities they accredit). The hospital is accused of patient dumping — discharging patients after treatment to homeless shelters and providing little or no followup care:
In a settlement announced Wednesday, the L.A. city attorney’s office said that College Hospital had dumped more than 150 mentally ill patients on skid row — long a magnet for the region’s most vulnerable citizens — in 2007 and 2008.
As part of the settlement, the hospital will pay $1.6 million in penalties and charitable contributions to a host of psychiatric and social-service agencies. The hospital also agreed to a first-of-its-kind injunction that prohibits it from transporting any homeless psychiatric patient discharged from their facilities to the streets or any shelter within an established “Patient Safety Zone,” a swath of downtown and South Los Angeles where most of the region’s homeless shelters and missions are concentrated.
Did the hospital apologize for its appalling behavior? Nope, and it still pretends it did nothing wrong releasing people with mental illness onto the streets as homeless. Until the College Hospital system in the Los Angeles area apologizes for this behavior and have a protocol in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future, I recommend boycotting this organization. A set of psychiatric hospitals like College Hospital won’t get the message loud and clear until people stop using their services.
Next in line for “I can’t believe people act like that still!” is the wonderful Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, which had to let go 11 of its employees recently for encouraging fights among mentally and developmentally disabled residents at the troubled Corpus Christi State School. The employees had little work experience beyond fast-food jobs, according to The Dallas Morning News’s review of personnel records. You can tell that school has great supervisors and managers on staff.
Were any of the employees the managers responsible for these pitiful hiring decisions? Nope, not a one. This despite the fact that apparently no one bothered to check the employees’ backgrounds: “Officials with the Human Development Center said no one from the state called to check Dixon’s references before hiring him at the school.” Great job there, Texas. Way to look out for some of your most vulnerable and in-need citizens.
But it’s not all bad news. Illinois should be proud of this pilot program that helps people with mental illness find appropriate housing — housing that gets them out of nursing homes, long a stop-gap solution for tens of thousands of people throughout the country:
Rockford’s Janet Wattles Center, primed with state and federal money, was the first in the state to be selected for the new program, called Rapid Reintegration.
“Many of these folks could benefit significantly from community placement if they had the housing support or subsidies and supportive services to help them live,” said Executive Director Frank Ware, who has been involved with the state’s long-term planning for nursing home issues for several years.
How did nursing homes take the place for psychiatric hospitals in the U.S.? Well, blame the movement to close down state hospitals while not putting an equal amount of money into providing the appropriate care and treatment many of those patients still needed:
The mentally ill often must give up their housing and stay with friends or family. The other option is homelessness and, sometimes, the criminal justice system.
That’s when a nursing home becomes the most appealing option. Nursing homes have empty beds because seniors today are healthier and delaying their moves, and there is a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds.
In Illinois, about 14,000 people with mental illnesses live in nursing homes for seniors, according to the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services.
I hope more cities and towns across the U.S. find money for programs like this, because all people really want and need is a little personalized attention and care when their illness gets the better of them. In the end, treating people with a little dignity and respect goes a long, long way in helping a person in their own recovery. Programs like this housing program in Illinois help pave the way.
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I know the following is an overgeneralization, and will anger legitimately offended Texan residents, but, when you have big states like Texas and California being recognized as alleged leaders of trends/opinions for this country, this can be said with some legitimacy:
If you look up the definition of projection/displacement/denial and find out what state promotes the most people who practice these impaired defenses, they would come from Texas. After all, this state leads (or is in the top 3)for capital punishment executions, including from what I recall was a successful execution of a mental health/developmentally disordered prisoner, and for you mental health providers out there, the now fairly discredited Texas Algorithms for depression/schizophrenia/Bipolar disorders.
I really feel for people who have mental health issues living in Texas. This is a state that probably has the largest contingent of narcissistic and antisocial traits/disorders of all continental states.
After all, just look at our last president!
I know the above is outrageous, but, so are the behaviors I read and hear about from former residents. California has it’s issues too, and from what we see from Illinois (at least urban wise) and Massachusetts based on their political representatives, they are not far behind either.
My state? It is on the east coast, and it has it’s less than stellar traits. But, would I relocate to Cal or Texas? I’d rather be homeless and live literally on the beaches on the East Coast.
Just an opinion, but rather harsh I expect to hear back!
By the way, nice to put in some positive examples of support and caring in the post.
Happy Easter/Passover
This article angered and saddened me as I live in the area of the Los Angeles County College Hospital. Having worked as a social worker with clients with developmental disabilities and about 2/3 mentally ill and 1/3 (overlapping) residing in skilled nursing facilities two of which were locked.
I know what should happen and should have happened with deinstitutionalization. The reality is that there are not enough “beds” in the areas that cover College Hospital and many other hospitals in the area. Many fall through the cracks and then there is the ever present issue of following physician’s and social service agencies recommendations.
My fear is that it is only going to become worse with the state economy especially with the % cut across the whole entire California budget. Caseload which are already above the state contract are going to increase. Services provided are going to be cut back further and due to the problems higher standards are going to have to be met. Oh, and salaries are on a freeze in many agencies who make little to begin with.
I am not very hopeful that things will get better in the near future and good people are leaving as they cannot raise their families under these situations.
Many who need services are going to fall through the cracks and holes. The really sad part of this is that the College Hospitals are “preferred” over the others in the area due to their quality.
Sorry to go on, but reality is starting to make headlines and what they are expecting is unrealistic given the resources available and the financial resouces to fix the problems let alone add much needed services.
CC
We need more affordable housing for the mentally ill people of our country.
It is the responsibility of a hospital to find a suitable discharge plan for a patient.
It is not the responsibility of a hospital to house a patient.
What happened in LA was a systems problem. It makes sense to hold the hospital responsible to a degree but we also need to look at the system that provides insufficient housing options for people with mental illness.
As others have said, it’s just really sickening to hear of vulnerable people being pawned off onto inadequate resources. Making someone who is mentally ill homeless is just appalling. It’s a good thing to bring these happenings into public light because sometimes only the fear of being ‘shamed’ will make organisations pull their socks up.
March 06,2009
I Elsa Romero Made a phone call to The County of Los Angeles Department of Human Resources at the ADA Coordinator at (213)738-2057Because I received an admittance letter for a written test for an asministrative Inernship at this department. and asked to speak to the person in charge of disability accomodation. When I called I asked what accomodation are available for people with diasbility and the voice of a lady answered me aske started asking me what is my disability and the minute I said, I am psychizophrenic she started to get agitated( her tone of voice changed by rising it up) and refused to continue giving me any more information and s asked me if I knew what the ADA is and I said that, is the department that help people with diabiility and then she said your disability has to be indentify , do you have docomenatation for it? I said, Ye,s but I need to request it from my personal physician with a form to document that and all of this will required time to do the process and my test appointment is on March 17 a couples of days away from the testing appoinment and she started to get agitated(rised her tone of voice) and when I asked her for her name, she refused to give it to me but aske me for my which I said Elsa Romero and she totally refused to continue the converstaion with me and I heard then, the voice of the man,who posibly was next to her because I was able to heard him talk and he said on the back ground “to calm down and I will take it from here†the man identified himself by the name of Scott Susswain When he address to me over the phone . I explain to him that I am being descriminated the minuteI answered the question of what my disability consist of and the lady I talked to refuded to continue talking to me and asking me If I kew that the ADA was and all I wanted is accomidation and what is the procedure for it.I asked him who the Human Resources Supervisor is and he told me Rohana Uraizee and her phone number is (213)738-2007. I also asked him who I was previoulsy talking to and he said Mrs Alice Parker who is the coordinator for the accomodation.I called Mrs Rehana Uraizee and explain the situation and that I was not being treated with ethical professsional and that I will withdrew my application on the bases of discrimination and lack of porfesionalism on their part ant that it will be very difficult to work with people like that. And that I felt descriminated the minuted I was asked to disclosed my disability and the lady refused to continue talking with me abd tge voice if a male took over.
One time I got beat up by my ex-husband I called the police and all he had to say is “She is schezophrenic” and I got taking in custody, all beaten up after I myself called the police for protection. Never again called the police and my ex-continues beating me up because he knew he can get away with it. The same with my family some family member who insult me and I had to take their insults otherwise my mother says I am making trouble for them and it is my fault and If I calle the police I will be responsible for whatever happends to that family member. And I don’t want to create problems for any body or have a guilty conscious. One time my sister hit me on the face I hit her back, really good and guess who got blame for? Me. who was the victim? my sister and no one believed me that she hitted me first until today everyone hates me because I gave my sister a black eye and I have to live with the hatred of those people who think I start trouble when is them who attack me first I just defend my self I have no one to turn to because no one will believe me because I am schezophrenic.
This information was awesome. Exactly how I feel. These patients do need a place to call “home”. I am doing an essay on this topic because I have strong feelings about how mistreated we as a society treat our fellow neighbors.