Don't abandon mental health

The word is out: Gov. Ed Rendell's administration is considering a plant to shut down the oldest state mental hospital in Harrisburg.

It isn't any news that government doesn't want to run institutions for the mentally ill or retarded. That message has been sent out for several decades.

The Associated Press attributes falling demand for services for institutional care has closed 11 of the 20 state hospitals that were in operation 25 years ago.

The original idea was to provide care closer to home - meaning the community would provide... What? How?

Oh yes, letting patients out of these hospitals also gave them back their rights. To do what?

Many had no place to go, but the community was supposed to take care of that. There was an initial burst of funding which didn't last. And funding for such services then fell into a horrible rut marked "Irrevocably insufficient."

We hate to sound jaded about the state's intentions, but this just sounds like a move to again shrink the state's participation in services.

The hospital with about 260 patients is old - the oldest in the state. That's a point in favor of the administration's proposal.

From there on in, it's all downhill.

Some of those patients still would need hospitalization. So, they just would be moved further away from anyone they know.

The idea supposedly would be for the communities then to provide for the patients being sent home. This, of course, is supposed to be cheaper and more effective. We've heard this rendition before, but the fact remains the resources to provide local services have never been consistently passed down and the money that has been passed down has been appallingly low.

Community care doesn't always allow for local hospitalization when required in Cumberland County. The only beds are at Holy Spirit Hospital in East Pennsboro Township and there isn't always room there.

Psychiatrists are at a minimum. Case workers are underpaid. Housing becomes problematic since no one is equipped to have people who might get violent in existing homes because of the liability and the shortage of qualified help.

The state probably should be building a new hospital instead of considering a shutdown. Or it should be releasing plans and figures for a really comprehensive community-based system, which won't come cheap either.

Just tossing aside the hospital and channeling the problem downward with vague a mention of providing financial help isn't responsible.

A public hearing is supposed to be held with a month of when the decision is announced concerning the hospital's shutdown, according to The Associated Press.

That's not good enough either when dealing with a problem that is growing in scope when it should be - after all these years of alleged efficient, effective and inexpensive care - coming under control.