THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, January 31, 1996            TAG: 9601310384
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: BY MARC DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 
DATELINE: NORFOLK                            LENGTH: Medium:   53 lines

SUIT CLAIMS WOMAN WAS RAPED WHILE A TPI PATIENT SHE HAD SOUGHT HELP FOR DEPRESSION AT THE MENTAL HOSPITAL.

A female patient at Tidewater Psychiatric Institute claims she was raped in the Norfolk mental hospital in 1994 by an unknown man while she was heavily drugged in bed after electroshock therapy.

Now, the woman is suing the institute. She accuses TPI of medical malpractice, failing to provide adequate security and failing to train and supervise its staff.

The woman seeks $1 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages, the maximum allowed in Virginia.

Her attorney, Jeff W. Rosen, filed the suit last week in Circuit Court.

At the time of the rape, the facility on Kempsville Road was owned by a California company, National Medical Enterprises.

Since then, the mental hospital has been sold twice and is now owned by First Hospital Corp. of Norfolk.

Officials at First Hospital declined to comment on the lawsuit Tuesday, saying they did not own the facility when the attack occurred.

An attorney for TPI, R. Craig Gallagher, said he hasn't seen the lawsuit and does not yet know enough about the case to comment.

According to the lawsuit, the attack happened about midnight on Jan. 26, 1994. The victim had been admitted three weeks earlier, suffering from major depression.

She was prescribed psychiatric therapy and a series of electroshock treatments.

On the day of the rape, the woman underwent her eighth and last electroshock treatment, the lawsuit says.

She was in a semi-private room for the night on a hallway housing male and female patients with various mental illnesses, the lawsuit states.

The woman claims her room was unlocked and unmonitored when someone entered and raped her. The lawsuit says she was in a deep sleep and was ``extremely disoriented, confused and lethargic'' from the electroshock and medications when the attack occurred. She says she awoke to find a stranger on top of her.

She was treated at Sentara Leigh Hospital, where tests found semen in her vagina, the lawsuit says. Police do not know who committed the rape, Rosen said.

A lawsuit represents only one side of a dispute. TPI has three weeks from the time it receives the lawsuit to file a reply.

KEYWORDS: LAWSUIT RAPE TIDEWATER PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTE

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