THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 20, 1997 TAG: 9702200103
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 50 lines
The chairman of the state mental health board will propose that an independent commission investigate whether patient rights are being trampled in state mental hospitals.
James G. Lumpkin Jr. said his proposal was prompted by the deaths of two patients at Central State Hospital and complaints from private mental health groups about patient mistreatment and the internal patient advocacy system.
The U.S. Justice Department is looking into the deaths of Gloria Huntley and Derrick Wilson, both of whom died while strapped to beds at Central State.
``We're concerned about the deaths, obviously,'' Lumpkin said. But he said ``the fact that there is dissatisfaction by the consumer and advocacy organizations is enough for me to take a look at it.''
Lumpkin declined to provide specifics of his plan before the full board considers it next month.
But a copy of the proposal, obtained by The Associated Press, said the commission will evaluate the deaths of Huntley and Wilson and the beating in November of another patient at Central State near Petersburg. Six Central State staff members were charged in the beating, and the Justice Department has said there are ``possible criminal ramifications'' in Huntley's death last June.
Members of the review commission will be chosen from private advocacy groups, such as the Virginia Alliance for the Mentally Ill, experts on the legal rights of mental patients and from the psychiatric community.
``It's going to be an independent group,'' Lumpkin said. ``In other words, we're not going to have the fox guarding the henhouse.''
Lack of independent oversight in the state Department of Mental Health's internal advocacy system has been a problem, said Valerie L. Marsh, executive director of the Virginia Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Her group sought the review.
``People in the mental health community have felt dissatisfied with the internal advocacy system for years because it is ineffective,'' Marsh said. ``I believe it is a conflict of interest for the treatment-providing system to also provide the advocacy function.
``Internal advocates have a real lonely job,'' Marsh said. ``They're either co-opted into silence or bullied into silence.''
She noted Huntley's case as an example. Huntley's attending psychiatrist at Central State warned a year before her death that mistreatment and repeated use of restraints could lead to her death because she suffered from epileptic seizures and asthma.
The doctor ``was fighting for her all by himself,'' Marsh said.