Lawmakers sharply question plan to privatize mental hospitals

The head of the state Department of Human Resources, under sharp questioning from legislators, on Friday defended the plan to turn over Georgia’s psychiatric hospitals to for-profit firms.

Privatization of mental hospitals “is not a given or a panacea” but could save the state money on the care, said DHR Commissioner B.J. Walker, addressing the joint Senate and House Appropriations Committee.

The change could also lead to improved community services for people who have mental illness, so they might not need hospitalization, she said.

The hearing Friday represented the first major legislative questioning of the state’s proposal to privatize some mental hospitals and to close others.

DHR recently has been pushing a proposal to hire for-profit companies to build and operate three new psychiatric facilities to replace the seven existing state hospitals. The last of the old facilities would close by 2012. Privatization could create new, state-of-the-art hospitals to replace aging facilities, Walker said.

House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) said closing some mental hospitals could lessen hospital access in south Georgia.

Walker responded that the state may alter its plan to add another, smaller hospital. That would result in new facilities in metro Atlanta, Milledgeville, and in the areas near Thomasville and in southeastern Georgia.

Lawmakers voiced strong concern about the problems with Georgia’s mental health system. They also questioned how the state would comply with last week’s agreement with the Department of Justice to improve care in its psychiatric hospitals, given current budget restraints.

“We’re making [spending] cuts, and yet we are offering to provide greater services,” said Sen. Johnny Grant (R-Milledgeville). “I just fear that this new level of service will be lower. There is a lot of angst out there.”

Rep. Bobby Parham (D-Milledgeville) said the lack of mental health services was overburdening the state’s sheriff departments.

“We as a state used to supply a lot of these [mental health] services,” he said. “We’ve got to do something.”

Walker said that care in the mental hospitals has improved over the past two years. But she acknowledged that to meet the provisions on the Justice Department settlement, “we may need resources.”

The Justice Department launched an investigation of Georgia’s mental hospitals in 2007, after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that poor medical care, underfunding and low staffing levels contributed to the deaths of dozens of hospital patients from 2002 through late 2007.