Perdue Inks Deal to Fix State Mental Hospitals

An agreement signed-off-on by Governor Sonny Perdue and federal Justice officials puts Georgia on-watch to vastly improve its mental health system.

The five-year settlement requires the state to make widespread changes to better deliver care and ensure safety of patients in Georgia’s seven psychiatric hospitals. Last year, a Justice Department report found critical errors in the system that led to unnecessary deaths and injuries. Georgia has mental health facilities in Atlanta, Savannah, Milledgeville, Rome, Augusta, Columbus, and Thomasville.

Under the deal’s terms, the state has one year to correct the worst conditions that have led to deaths in hospitals. Within four years, improvements must be made in other areas. There will be regular federal inspections.

Governor Sonny Perdue say the state is absolutely on-board to correcting the problems:

"To have our federal-steward oversight...we welcome that because we want to be held accountable. We want to do it the right way, to be acclaimed as doing it the right way. It’ll take investments that we’ll make because it’s the right thing to do."

And those investments might be costly. Asked by GPB Friday where the extra money would come from, Perdue stated only "It’ll come from the budget."

That budget is already challenged with a two-billion dollar plus shortfall.

Perdue ready to address DHR issues

Governor Sonny Perdue this morning is expected to announce significant changes to operations within the state's Department of Human Resources. Streamlining operations, or moving programs elsewhere within Georgia government are some of the possible actions. The DHR has been under severe scrutiny for its handling of mental hospitals in the state. The system has also been under investigation from officials with the U.S. Department of Justice. Along with those problems, the DHR is another state agency trying to deal with budget cuts. The state’s DHR oversees about 80 programs from child welfare, to mental health, to services for the aging. It has an annual budget of 1.6 billion dollars.

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.