Probes begin at state mental hospitals

State health officials will have a five-person team investigate Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, as Georgia evaluates its mental hospitals. The head of the Department of Human Resources will lead the group, which will be on the scene at the facility for at least 90 days. A volunteer advisory committee of at least eight mental health experts is being put together to provide input.

These groups are separate from a 15-member commission announced last week and being organized by Governor Sonny Perdue to examine mental health services in Georgia.

The flurry of investigations comes in response to a series of stories in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that detailed at least 115 questionable deaths at state mental hospitals, and cases of physcial or sexual abuse with nearly 200 others since 2002.

State to pay $1.25 million

Georgia is set to hand over its largest wrongful death payout in more than a decade. The Atlanta-Journal Constitution reports that state officials have agreed to pay a Cobb County family $1.25 million dollars. Their daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Crider, was 14 in 2006 when she died at Georgia Regional Hospital/Atlanta. That is a state mental health hospital. Crider died from a severe intestinal blockage after a doctor declined to examine her and workers failed to check on her during the night.