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Officials dedicate new State Hospital Saturday, May 31, 2008 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Officials dedicated a new $32 million state facility to treat the mentally ill Friday. The new 130-bed State Hospital is a major improvement over the existing 44-year-old facility, which has drawn the ire of mental health advocates who complained it was woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the mentally ill. "Just as the 1882 and 1964 facilities were needed to advance the standard of care in their day, we needed this facility to provide the treatment and care that are in need in our day and our time," State Hospital Director Charles Smith said during a speech at Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony. The new 152,000-square-foot building is adjacent to the University of Arkansas School for Medical Sciences campus. Gov. Mike Beebe said the facility benefited UAMS, and the Department of Human Services and mental health issues overall. He noted the collaboration between the medical school and DHS, which oversees the state's mental health program, in getting the new hospital built. Construction was funded, for the most part, by UAMS, and in return the medical school received the old State Hospital building, along with several other buildings, plus some land where new medical school student dormitories are now located. The new State Hospital will have 90 adult beds and 40 beds for juveniles. However, the number of psychiatric patient beds in Central Arkansas will increase in January when UAMS' Institute of Psychiatry opens with 40 new beds. DHS Director John Selig said the new State Hospital is much nicer and more patient-friendly than the facility it replaces. "I found the (old) place to be claustrophobic and a bit chaotic and a bit depressing, the kinds of things you don't want when you're trying to treat mental illness," Selig said. Beebe said the new hospital will allow the state to provide better services for people suffering from mental illness, something U.S. District Court Judge G. Thomas Eisele said was needed in a 2006 ruling. Eisele's comments about the treatment of the mentally ill in the state came in his dismissal of a lawsuit over the death of 60-year-old Donald Winter of Bella Vista. Winters' family sued the state after he died in the Benton County Jail while awaiting transfer to the State Hospital, which was full at the time. Jailed in December 2002 on a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge, Winters hit his head and arms on the toilet and walls in his cell, and refused to eat and drink. He was found dead in his cell on Jan. 1, 2003, four days after a doctor who examined him at the Ozark Guidance Center in Springfield, Mo., expressed concern that Winter suffered dehydration. Eisele ruled that Winter, who had a history of mental illness, was not discriminated against in Benton County because of his disability. But the judge said the lawsuit raised serious issues that should be addressed. "Our county and city jails should not become our mental hospitals by default," Eisele wrote. "The solution lies with the political branches of our state government - the executive and legislative branches, and particularly the General Assembly, which has the power to bring before it all the interested parties: Mental health experts, law enforcement, financial and budget experts." Kim Arnold of Little Rock, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said she is optimistic the new State Hospital will improve care for the mentally ill. "Maybe we'll leave some of those old philosophical things behind," Arnold said, referring to the need for improved and innovative treatments. "We are making strides in reducing restraints and seclusion and really looking at things in a recovery-oriented fashion," she said. |
