Nine out of 10 beds in state psychiatric hospitals are occupied by people sent by the courts, leaving no space for people in mental health crises.
“Statistics show that 93% of psychiatric hospital beds are occupied, meaning that ordinary people with mental health problems, or people who have family members who have not committed a crime, cannot go there. We cannot,” Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday. “That's crazy.”
DeWine said he wants to solve this problem and help county jails provide mental health services to incarcerated people. The governor said he would soon appoint a group of experts, including judges, sheriffs and mental health experts, to make specific recommendations.
Courts send people to state hospitals to restore their mental competency and then allow them to stand trial for minor crimes.
“I know the courts have to make sure they can put that person somewhere, but a state hospital is probably not the best place for most people,” DeWine said. “The guy who stole the pizza is taking over someone's space. If he can get them there in a reasonable amount of time, he totally saves their life and turns their life around.” You will be able to do that.”
Why doesn't Ohio have enough psychiatric beds?
Since the 1950s, Ohio and other states have closed psychiatric hospitals and committed to treating those patients in local facilities.
“We said we're going to stop warehousing people, get most people out of facilities, and at the same time create a county-by-county regional system,” DeWine said. “We didn't do that.”
Ohio closed two state hospitals, Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Dayton and Appalachian Behavioral Healthcare in Cambridge, in 2008 to balance the state's budget. Six state hospitals remain open.
DeWine pointed out that this is not just an issue in Ohio.
States closed 62 psychiatric hospitals between 1997 and 2015, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, and the state's bed capacity has declined by 91% since the 1950s.
In 2019, DeWine called for changes to how Ohio uses state psychiatric beds in the wake of the Dayton shooting.
Prison: a de facto mental health hospital
According to the Step Up Initiative, which aims to divert people with serious mental illnesses from incarceration, one in three inmates in Ohio has a mental illness, causing prisons to serve as de facto treatment centers. are forced to do so.
“More people with mental illness than ever are sitting in local jails without receiving treatment,” the group said. “Across the country and in Ohio, prisons are a revolving door for people with mental illness.”
Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton, who heads Step Up, said the state lacks housing for people experiencing mental health crises, who often end up in prison. Stated.
She said prisons need to provide medication-assisted treatment, psychotropic drugs and therapy for people suffering from opiate withdrawal, and train guards in crisis intervention techniques.
Stratton said prisons need to connect people with services like Medicaid before release, and communities need to build more supportive housing to help people have stable housing.
She agrees with the governor that existing state hospital beds need to be made more available. Her answer is that many people move into outpatient treatment to regain competency before going to trial.
How to shift medical costs
Ohio's 89 full-scale prisons house approximately 300,000 people each year, and the state prison system houses approximately 45,000 people. Most of them qualify for health care through Medicaid, a state and federally funded program.
However, federal regulations prevent Medicaid coverage for prisoners. Ohio's prisons and jails are focused on ensuring that Medicaid coverage resumes as soon as people leave prison.
Some states have applied to the federal government for special waivers that would allow Medicaid to cover the medical costs of prisoners nearing release. The exemption means the federal government will pay about 60% of some inmates' medical costs.
When asked why Ohio Medicaid hasn't applied for that waiver, DeWine said, “We'll look into it.”
Laura Bischoff is a reporter for USA TODAY Network's Ohio bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliate news organizations across Ohio..
