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Why Aren’t Our Elected Leaders Listening?

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Can you imagine what would happen if a newspaper reported that a hospital refused to treat someone suffering a heart attack? What would the public think if a car accident victim was turned away from an emergency room? Yet, according to a recent report by the Virginia Office of Inspector General for Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, at least 200 persons who were having a mental health crisis and met Virginia’s involuntary civil commitment standard because they were dangerous were refused treatment in the Hampton Roads area between April 2010 and March 2011. 

The practice of turning away psychiatric patients in Virginia has become so common that there is a word for it  — “Streeting.”

The IG’s report cited an example of a 66-year-old Virginia woman who needed immediate care but was turned away by 15 private hospitals. She then was driven a hundred miles away to a crisis stablization unit only to be turned away there because she did not make it through the unit’s medical clearance process due to lethargy, a medication side effect.  Forty-eight hours later she was finally admitted to a hospital emergency room.

She was lucky. At least she finally found a bed.

Where is the community outrage? Why are doctors, mental health professionals, community leaders and elected officials not alarmed?Click to continue…

Where would you draw the line?

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An investigative report recently released by the Inspector General’s Office in the Virginia Behavioral Health and Developmental Services Department is causing a stir. Each year, the IG is required to make unannounced visits to state facilities that treat  persons with mental disorders and report his findings.   

The section of G. Douglas Bevelacqua’s report that is getting the most attention, especially from the National Alliance on Mental Illness Virginia Chapter  is the IG’s discovery that “streeting” is now a common practice in Virginia. “Streeting” is the term that hospitals use when someone, who should be admitted, is turned out onto the street because there are no beds available. (More on this in a future blog.)

It’s another discovery that Bevelacqua cites that I want to discuss here. 

In his report, Bevelacqua writes that a federal regulation is being so narrowly interpreted by Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli  that as many as ten percent of patients in state run facilities are being denied access to treatment that could help them recover. 

Patients are being denied “medically necessary interventions that would allow them to participate in their treatment.”  They are being “denied palliative care” and their rights to helpful treatment are being “restricted,” the IG claims.

Kenneth T. Cuccinelli is well-known in Virginia mental health circles. When he was running for office, he talked about his efforts as a state legislator to improve mental health services. I spoke to him about the need to reform Virginia’s mental health system and he was well versed in the problems that our state faces. He sees himself as a friend of persons with mental illnesses.

So why is the IG suggesting that Cuccinelli’s office and a federal rule – that was written to protect persons with mental illnesses from abuse –are actually causing great harm to patients in Virginia?

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