Mental Health Hospital Population a Concern

OKLAHOMA CITY — Patient population at the state’s only public mental health hospital has been creeping upward, alarming some lawmakers who fear a logjam in the state system.

State mental health officials say they need time to assess what the causes are and then to make adjustments.

The number of patients at Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman has gone as high as 181 recently; 140 is considered capacity.

Daily counts show that patient levels higher than 160 are not uncommon.

Two-thirds of the patients entering Griffin come from Oklahoma and Cleveland counties. The other third comes from across the state, including Tulsa and northeastern Oklahoma.

In response, state mental health Commissioner Terry Cline has authorized the hiring of more employees.

Cline said staffing has increased by a net of 15 since the crowding started several months ago.

Officials also have stoppedsending to Griffin patients from the Oklahoma Forensics Center, formerly Eastern State Hospital, at Vinita.

About 30 patients were due to be transferred to Griffin, but the moves were halted after about a third had moved. This type of transfer complies with a new state law that says mentally ill patients who are accused of crimes cannot be kept indefinitely at units like Vinita.

Cline said he is watching the situation closely to see whether demand for Griffin’s services continues to rise.

Besides the impact from Vinita, Cline said the crowding could be due to cutbacks in mental health community services a few years ago.

Dr. Gerry Clancy, dean of the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine at Tulsa, said a full house at Griffin can cause a ripple effect in the state’s mental health system because short-term acute hospitals will have trouble sending patients to Griffin and will fill up.

“Gridlock in the system can get you into real trouble where clinicians are having to decide who gets committed,” he said. “You are rationing care.”

Alarmed by what they were hearing about Griffin, two Norman lawmakers, Republican Thad Balkman and Democrat Bill Nations, requested a meeting with mental health officials in late May.

“There have been some very high censuses,” Balkman said. “It certainly has happened more than I care for.”

Griffin employees will not speak publicly about working conditions. But their union, the Oklahoma Public Employees Association, is closely watching the situation.

“They have been putting mattresses on the floors. Patients are in the hallways, creating problems,” said OPEA official Shannon Crow.

Cline said that at one time patients were being kept on cots, although that is no longer the case.

After legislators met with top mental health officials, the department prepared a memorandum saying what would be done to ease the crowding.

The memo, dated June 28, states: “Griffin may hire whatever staff are needed to ensure safe staffing levels.”

Despite crowding at the Norman hospital, Cline said there is no need to panic. Officials should wait until more community services are in place, he said.

Crow questions whether employees who are already overworked at Griffin can endure the wait.

In the spring, the state Legislature approved $5.5 million for core community mental health services, designed to keep people out of hospitals.

Meanwhile, the waiting list for treatment at community mental health centers hovers at more than 500 a month.

Cline said the new money could drastically cut that backlog.

Money also was provided to establish three more teams capable of giving intense treatment in the community to people who otherwise likely would end up at Griffin.

Bonnie Dunn, head of the Transition House in Norman, which strives to integrate severely mentally ill people back into the community, said the crowding may indicate that Oklahoma has gone too far in limiting hospital beds for the mentally ill.

“We’re trying to pretend that we don’t need the hospitalization. But the bottom line is we don’t have enough beds,” she said.

On the other hand, Dunn and others applaud Cline for his insistence that essentially everybody with mental illness can be integrated back into the community. Dunn and others have witnessed what was considered the warehousing of the mentally ill in institutions.

In the 1960s, thousands of Oklahomans were kept for years at a time in mental institutions.

About 1960, Oklahoma’s daily census in state mental hospitals averaged about 6,300, compared to populations in the neighborhood of 160 at Griffin today.

About 75 percent of the Griffin patients stay 14 days or less, Cline said. Only about 5 percent stay more than 30 days.

Mick Hinton (405) 528-2465

mick.hinton@tulsaworld.com