From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Georgia mental health advocates are challenging the settlement of a federal civil rights investigation of Georgia’s state psychiatric hospitals, although some fear their objections could allow the state to withdraw its plan to overhaul the facilities.

Among the charges: the settlement allows too much state self regulation and gives the state too long to address critical issues.

Organizations that advocate for people with mental illness — the Carter Center, among them — complained in court papers that federal authorities would rely too heavily on the state to monitor its own performance.

With that degree of self-regulation, they said, the settlement “represents little more than a promise by Georgia to do better.”

The hospitals have been the subject of intense scrutiny since 2007 when the “Hidden Shame” series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution uncovered the deaths of at least 136 patients under suspicious circumstances from 2002 through late 2007.

Earlier post here.

From the [Canadian] National Post, CBC, CTV.ca:

A Quebec couple is suing Montreal Children’s Hospital for $3.5 million for putting their daughter back on life support without their permission.

“The ethics committee attempted to impose their morality on the couple, something they had no right to do,” said Jean-Pierre Menard, the couple’s lawyer.

Menard said the parents had withdrawn life supports from their infant daughter, Phebe Mantha, at the recommendation of doctors. He said the hospital’s ethics committee overruled their decision and resumed her feeding without consulting them. The little girl is now described as “severely disabled.”

Parents Marie-Eve Laurendeau and Stephane Mantha are seeking financial support for their daughter, who needs round-the-clock care, Menard said. He said the parents have bonded with their child and love her.

(Undated family photo of Phebe Mantha from CTV.ca.)

An excerpt from the obituary by Gary Rotstein in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Dr. William I. Cohen spent 19 years heading the Down Syndrome Center of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, creating a loving, family-centered environment where parents with developmentally disabled children found unexpected reassurance.

He had titles as a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and professor of pediatrics and psychiatry, but his personal touch meant far more. Most of the 2,000 families who have visited the center since its creation in 1989 spent hours with Dr. Cohen.

After a visit to the center’s office on Fifth Avenue near Children’s Hospital, they appreciated him as not just a skilled doctor, but a compassionate listener who helped parents see a positive future caring for a child with Down syndrome.

“He treated me with such care at a time of life when you just don’t know what you’re in for,” said Michelle Zeff of Greenfield, mother of a 1-year-old son who has been a patient. “There’s a lot of explanation, a lot of time, a lot of care, a lot of love … from the minute he came in with his big smile and his handshake that turned into a big hug.”

See also:

• Death notice in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
• Video of a talk by Dr. Cohen on the health concerns of people with Down syndrome, presented in December 2008 in New York City by the National Down Syndrome Society.
• Remembering Bill Cohen — on the website of the National Down Syndrome Society

(Photo from Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center)

From the Kansas City Star:

The Kansas City region suffers from Missouri’s chronic failure to take care of people who are mentally ill. Funding for the area’s psychiatric hospital has dropped by about 20 percent since 2003. State officials have eliminated psychiatric services for children, reduced group home space, and sought to contract hospital services to private operators. More budget cuts are forecast for next year. An excerpt:

Those with mental illness aren’t an especially effective lobbying group. Many aren’t in any condition to even vote. Perhaps that’s why they are such a target for budget-cutters.

… But every dollar taken away adds to the grief of families and to the burdens of local police and social service groups. It’s past time for community leaders to insist that the state stop heaping problems upon people who already shoulder more than their share.

See also: In Missouri, mentally ill residents bounce between home, street and jail — Kansas City Star

From News 14 Carolina:

Members of North Carolina’s Disability Action Network demonstrated outside a breakfast for lawmakers this week to demand major reforms in the way the state’s mental health system cares for people with disabilities.

The protest follows a rash of problems at North Carolina’s mental hospitals. At Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro recently, a patient fell after taking his medication and then sat alone for 24 hours, neglected by nurses, until he died.

“We are all one people, and when you hurt one of us, all of us are going to get upset,” Disability Action Network executive director Michael Murray said.

See also:

Patient buried before Cherry filed report to pathologist — Raleigh News & Observer

Another Cherry mishap — editorial in Raleigh News & Observer. An excerpt:

Unfortunately, Cherry’s problems are many, so many that federal officials have pulled the hospital’s accreditation, meaning the state has lost $800,000 a month in federal funding. State officials — who say they’re working on straightening out mental health although they need funds and staff beyond what the legislature is likely to provide — are working to get the money back. That’s fine, but they cannot tolerate a failure to follow the rules in any of these institutions.

Earlier post here.

See News & Observer series on the state’s mental institutions:

Mental disorder: The failure of reform

With video. (Photo from News 14)

Bev Perdue pays surprise visit to scene of assaults, neglect

From the Raleigh News & Observer:

North Carolina governor Bev Perdue spoke with administrators, workers and patients at Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro Friday. She said in a statement that she had let managers know she has “raised the bar” for patient care. Perdue had promised during her campaign to check in personally on institutions that have drawn national attention for neglect and abuse. An excerpt:

The federal government has stopped insurance payments to [Cherry] hospital because inspectors deemed it dangerous.

Staff largely ignored a dying man who sat in a chair for nearly a day without food in April of last year. While the hospital was under scrutiny for neglect that led to the patient’s death, two workers beat a patient and threatened a witness last August.

… The state has had problems with all of its mental hospitals in the last two years, with the federal government threatening to stop paying for patient treatment at all five hospitals the state operated during that time.

See News & Observer series on the state’s mental institutions:

Mental disorder: The failure of reform

Investigators found repeated violations of constitutional rights.

State does not admit wrongdoing. Funding still uncertain.

By Alan Judd and Andy Miller, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Georgia promised the federal government Thursday it will make dramatic improvements in its state psychiatric hospitals — and that it will spend what’s necessary to protect patients from harm.

The pledge, signed late in the day by Gov. Sonny Perdue, commits the state to a five-year plan of correcting deficiencies that caused hundreds of patient injuries and illnesses and dozens of deaths.

In reaching a settlement agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, the state did not admit wrongdoing.

But officials did not dispute the conclusions of federal investigators that the seven state hospitals have repeatedly violated patients’ constitutional rights by failing to keep them safe, providing incompetent medical care, and conducting shoddy investigations into suicides and other deaths.

Earlier posts.