Governor Corzine knows a bit about getting patched up after a car wreck.
Why doesn't he go to Ancora tomorrow and check things out? See how the other half lives. Maybe, I don't know, make a decision?

Despite the clear lackings in care at hospitals like Ancora the reality is that the patients they treat can't live on there own and most do need an inpatient hospital level of care. The healthcare system in general is overloaded and closing Ancora would necessitate finding beds (which don't exist) elswhere.

The most hopeful of the Ancora headlines you found are those that mention the possibility of takeover by the UMDNJ academic system. Unfortunately though, I am sure that the UMDNJ psychiatry department is underfunded and understaffed and such a takeover would tax their clinical faculty.

Addendum NOT for the Comment: Told you she would win!

Dearest Liz:
Unfortunately, this is not just a one hospital problem! This is a mental health crisis nationwide. I have worked in some of these so called hospitals, and know that care provided those with mental health issues is sorely lacking both in humaneness and effectiveness.
I personally believe until we as a society treat mental issues on par with physical health problems, little change is on the horizon. You have a double edged sword of mentally ill not getting the treatment they need, and employees working in these institutions being placed in dangerous situations time and time again (This can’t help but limit the therapeutic environment in a negative way for all involved). Sure you can close down the hospitals, (they did that is California a long time ago without private or community resources’ to feel in the gaps, and you had lots of mentally ill people living on the streets without or with very limited mental health care options). So then where do you put these people?
I know in California 95% plus of those housed in state mental hospitals our forensic in nature, as far as their commitment orientation goes. These patients create a significant danger to society if they are released before being treated properly and are monitored for continued stability upon release into a community setting. So we really have a “catch 22” situation with few realistic options until the whole system of mental health is reorganized, and the focus has been changed to a more humane and effective therapeutic practice and treatment. This would take a total transformation in the way government and society views this problem. We would all have to make a brand new commitment to the way we are dealing mental health problems (as usual this tends to be one of those dirty little secrets most people don’t want to deal with or look at: it’s lot easier for society to just say they are in a hospital and we feel safe). That sounds a whole lot like our prison systems! There are many correlations between the two institutionalized programs. In fact those in prison have in theory and practice more rights than the legally committed mentally ill.
I’m sorry to say I’m not holding my breath on any effective dramatic changes happening in the near future. Mental health situations are seldom a one size fits all problem or solution. Then when government takes over these issues; they many times create more problems (layer upon layer of bureaucratic waste and over intrusion) than solutions in reality. I won’t even get into the cost involved and money wasted within our mental health systems without proper oversight or responsibility taken for the misuse of those precious few funds, or efficient measurement of the effectiveness of the treatment actually provided.
I’m definitely not convinced that institutions are the best way to provide effective mental health services unless we are dealing with the most extreme and dangerous patient population. I would think a holistic community based programs would not only be more effective and humane, but would be much more cost effective also. Unfortunately there isn’t the political will or pressure to make these types of changes happen within either party. So the status quo continues as usual, and the mentally ill are the continued victims of broken policy and a system that does not work.
Yours truly
Stan Cavers

Sometimes proposed solutions are simply too weird for the rational mind to comprehend. Public Advocate Chen of the New Jersey Division of Mental Health Advocacy has proposed that 300 persons from New Jersey's state psychiatric hospitals be discharged to residential health care facilities (a/k/a/ board and care). The primary argument is economic rather than humanitarian since cost of "care" at these facilities is often $24 per day. Too many of these facilities have history of providing poor care in a poor environment.

Have we reached the point where consumers of mental health services are perceived as merely burdensome inventory even by those who putatively advocate for them? What happened to all the talk of consumer recovery, empowerment, choice, dignity and on and on? It was after all all talk.

"Public advocate acts to ease crowded psychiatric hospitals: Wants to shift 300 patients to cheaper boarding homes"
http://www.nj.com/starledger/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-9/1204781746180230.xml&coll=1

"Transforming Housing for People with Psychiatric Disabilities Report", SAMSHA (2006) - search on New Jersey
http://download.ncadi.samhsa.gov/ken/pdf/SMA06-4173/Housing_booklet.pdf

The New Jersey legislature is going to make things so much better for the patients at Ancora by banning smoking on the entire campus. Can anyone even imagine what it must be like to give up smoking in an environment like this? Apparently, New Jersey's legislators haven't.

Legislators put smoking ban at [New Jersey state] psychiatric hospitals on fast track.
Excerpted: "The legislation extends the ban to outdoor areas, where patient-smokers find refuge."

http://www.nj.com/starledger/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-4/120538657997880.xml&coll=1

Sounds alot like Napa State in California.

New Jersey ponders how to fix Ancora Hospital

Posted on Wed, Mar. 5, 2008

By Troy Graham

Inquirer Staff Writer
Ancora Psychiatric Hospital in Camden County has gotten a lot of attention in the last two years, for all the wrong reasons.

Two criminally insane killers have escaped, and one committed suicide upon his return. Two patients have been killed by other patients. And criticism has rained down from politicians and advocates.

The talk now has shifted to how to fix the troubled state-run hospital in Winslow.

The state Department of the Public Advocate will release a report today calling for more funding to allow psychiatric patients statewide to be moved to less-restrictive residential settings.

Ancora's management supports the idea, saying the facility is overcrowded with people kept beyond their discharge dates because they have nowhere to go.

"The old thought, that once you go into a psychiatric hospital that you spend most of your life there, isn't the best practice," said Ellen Lovejoy, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, which runs Ancora.

Last year, nearly half of Ancora's 709 beds were filled with patients who could have left had they had a place to stay with basic services, according to the state.

The hospital had 712 patients yesterday, Lovejoy said.

The state is settling a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of patients kept too long in psychiatric hospitals. The settlement will require the state to house patients in the least restrictive setting possible.

Laurie Brewer, a spokeswoman for the public advocate, said the number of for-profit residential facilities, where patients get some nursing care but live largely on their own, had dwindled.

The public advocate's report will call on the state to support such facilities, to create more commmunity support for patients, and to increase to $23 a day, from the current $7, what the state pays for each patient's care in the residences, Brewer said.

"We're basically saying, 'Look . . . it's an option that's drying up,' " she said. "For those with a very low income, it's this or homelessness."

Keeping each patient at Ancora costs about $128,000 a year, Brewer said. Others say Ancora's problems go beyond overcrowding.

Assemblywoman Sheila Oliver (D., Essex) chairs the Assembly Human Services Committee, which held hearings last week on Ancora. She said the hospital had not kept up with the times. The care, the layout and condition of the campus, and the attitudes of the employees reflect a bygone era, she said.

"There has not been good leadership there at all," she said.

She was "infuriated," she said, when Ancora and Human Services leaders did not mention last week that two more patients died recently at the hospital.

The Camden County medical examiner identified them as Felicia DeBraux, 45, and Courtney Hughes, 40. No cause of death has been determined for DeBraux, who died last week. Hughes died of natural causes, county officials said yesterday.

Lovejoy said DeBraux had died of "apparently natural causes."

"My concern would be the quality of the medical care received," Oliver said. "Could they have been preventable deaths?"

DeBraux was the fifth patient to die at Ancora since July 2006, when a woman smothered her roommate with a pillow. Six months later a man died after being punched in an argument over a cigarette.

In September, William Enman, who was committed after killing his roommate and his roommate's 4-year-old son in 1974, escaped from Ancora. He was found two days later on the hospital grounds.

In December, DeWitt Crandell, who stabbed his parents in 1996, also escaped. He was soon returned to Ancora and hanged himself despite being placed under a 24-hour watch.

Ancora's chief executive and a security guard were removed from their jobs as a result, and the hospital made a variety of changes.

In written testimony to Oliver's committee, Ancora employee Stephen Viteo cited several problems: nepotism, staffing shortages, ambiguous policies, and a lack of training.

But, Viteo, a union representative, agreed with hospital management that overcrowding was "the root of all evil."

"Overcrowding . . . is a cause of stress to people," he said. "The people we serve already are distressed. . . . How are we providing quality care if we are adding to their stress?"

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20080305_New_Jersey_ponders_how_to_fix_Ancora_Hospital.html