NAMI NEW JERSEY calls on Governor Corzine to immediately
reconvene the Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health
in light of the critical incidences that have occurred in
two of the state’s psychiatric hospitals in the past
week. On July thirteenth patients at Greystone Park Psychiatric
Hospital were not evacuated from a ward as smoke filled
the first floor causing patients to panic while staffers
remained seated, and in one case, asleep. “It is clear
that with all the attention on the state budget and the
creation of a new Department of Children and Families that
we have taken our eye off the ball of what remains a very
troubled mental health system” stated Phillip Lubitz,
NAMI NEW JERSEY’s director of advocacy programs.
Advocates have repeatedly decried the dangerous overcrowding
that has existed in each of the states psychiatric hospitals,
a criticism that was validated by the Report of the Governors
Task Force on Mental Health. In response the Task Force
recommended a multiyear plan to reform a “fragmented
and uncoordinated system” plague by “insufficient
and inadequate services”. The optimism generated by
this report has been short lived due to Governor Corzine’s
retreat from the state’s commitment to fully promote
systems change. Although the recently adopted budget continues
the year one recommendations of the Governor’s Task
Force, not a single proposal recommended for year two is
funded. So while NAMI NEW JERSEY fully supports the investigations
that are underway at the two hospitals and the immediate
remediation of the issues that led to the two incidences,
serious systems problems continue to fester. Nearly half
of the individuals in state and county hospitals remain
institutionalized solely because there are not adequate
community services to support them. Advocates have consistently
warned that in a system so inadequate a disaster is waiting
to happen on any given day. This week one was barely averted
and another tragically occurred.
ACTION NEEDED
NAMI NJ calls on advocates to contact Governor Corzine
and demand that New Jersey provide adequate care for persons
with a mental illness and fully fund the reforms outlined
in the Report of the Governor’s Task Force on Mental
Health.
Contact Governor Corzine:
P.O. Box 001
State House
Trenton, N.J. 08625
(609) 292-6000
http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html
Read the news reports:
State probing homicide at psychiatric hospital
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/115337546367360.xml&coll=1
Ancora patient strangled
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060718/NEWS01/607180358/1006
Greystone under fire for delay in evacuation
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/jersey/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1153201700233770.xml&coll=1
Greystone response to fire probed
http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060719/COMMUNITIES38/607190327/1203/NEWS0
