Report criticizes state’s transfers of disabled into communities

For individuals with developmental disabilities

* Numbers current as of July 2015

SOURCE: GA. DEPARTMENT OF BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

Georgia continues to show a lack of progress in moving people with developmental disabilities out of state-run hospitals, according to a report released Monday.

The report by independent reviewer Elizabeth Jones said just four people with developmental disabilities, such as cerebral palsy and Down syndrome, have moved to community settings in the past year.

“This is especially troubling because 266 individuals are still confined to state hospitals,” Jones said in her report, dated Sept. 17.

Georgia, under a five-year settlement agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, agreed to end all admissions of people with developmental disabilities to state psychiatric hospitals. The agreement stemmed from an investigation of the abuse and deaths of patients in state institutions first brought to light in a 2007 series of stories by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The state promised in the 2010 pact that patients with developmental disabilities already in those hospitals would be moved to more appropriate settings by July of this year.

But problems, including abuse and deaths, in the care delivered in the community living situations led a state agency last year to stop transferring people with developmental disabilities from hospitals to community residences.

The settlement also sought to improve care for Georgians with mental illness. The state has since established dozens of community services and housing for about 9,000 people with mental illness and created community support and crisis intervention teams to help people with developmental disabilities and mental illness avoid hospitalization.

Still, the AJC reported Sunday that Georgia's spending on mental illness ranks near the bottom among states. The state also has a shortage of mental health professionals. And Georgia's acute-care hospitals since 2010 have lost more than $150 million in delivering care for uninsured patients with psychiatric disorders.

Georgia has meanwhile declined to expand its Medicaid health program for the poor under the Affordable Care Act, which could help tens of thousands of adults with mental illness get services. Conservative lawmakers have said the state cannot afford to grow a program that is already overwhelmed and inefficient.

The state Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities issued a statement Monday, saying that the report “reflects the significant improvements made to Georgia’s behavioral health and developmental disability service system in the last five years.”

"As with all previous reports, we highly value and take into consideration the recommendations of the reviewer and her team of experts,'' the statement said. "While the end date of the settlement agreement has passed, we are constantly working to ensure that the services we deliver provide the best opportunity for the people we serve to live a life of recovery and independence."

While the state behavioral health agency has a good basic plan to help these patients, the lack of execution is both disappointing and frustrating, said Eric Jacobson of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities.

“Do we have the will power and leadership to move folks to the community?’’ Jacobson said.

Talley Wells with Atlanta Legal Aid said Monday that “it’s unacceptable to have moved only four people out [of hospitals] in the last year.”

But, Wells said, the state has made progress in five years on mental health services “after 150 years of little progress.”

Jones indicated that many people with developmental disabilities and mental illness have received good services. She cited a 28-year-old woman in the Augusta area who spent most of the past 15 years in a state hospital with limited periods in the community. But after much work by state officials, Jones said, the woman has lived in her own apartment since November.

Jones urged that the state be given additional time to fix remaining problems. “However, there also must be a series of stringent timelines, specific outcome measures and a frank assessment of available resources if the systemic reform is to move forward in a reasonable manner without unnecessary delay and risk.”