If District Judge Martin Egelhoff wanted to focus attention on the problem of inadequate funding for mental health programs in Colorado, he did a bang-up job.
Egelhoff has threatened to fine or imprison the head of the state psychiatric hospital in Pueblo for disobeying a June order to treat accused bicycle thief Eugene Zuniga.
The hospital is bulging at the seams and had to turn the man away.
Zuniga was found incompetent to stand trial, and the judge ordered him to the hospital for treatment so he could become competent to be tried.
Because of the judge’s threat to punish hospital chief Steve Schoenmakers, the state found room for Zuniga at the hospital’s maximum-security section in September by moving him ahead of nearly 80 other defendants. Those people, too, are languishing in jails as they await their turn at the state hospital, known as the Colorado Mental Health Institute.
Special prosecutors appointed by the judge also are seeking a contempt citation against Marva Livingston Hammons, executive director of the state Department of Human Services, claiming she has failed to ensure that competency evaluations are done in a timely manner. Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the department, said the backlog of people like Zuniga is several months long.
This is not a new problem, nor is it limited to Colorado. (And jailing state officials won’t solve the problem, although it does make for attention-grabbing headlines.)
Nationally, there are 29,000 fewer patient beds in psychiatric hospitals than there were 11 years ago. And community treatment programs aren’t taking up the slack, because they, too, have lost funding.
Egelhoff has managed to shine a light on the problem, and he should be thanked for that. The 2001 recession devastated the state budget and forced cuts in many critical programs, including those that serve the mentally ill. Up to $25 million was cut from programs that serve the poor and mentally ill since a 2002 study found that more than 66,000 people needed mental health treatment and weren’t getting it. Complicating matters is a federal requirement that the state hospital maintain a certain staff-to-patient ratio, which further limits how many people can be treated.
The question is what to do about the problem. Thanks to last year’s voter-approved Referendum C, about $7.8 million has been restored to a few programs. In the longer term, state lawmakers may need to funnel a lot more money into the mental-health system. It’s also important to ensure that state agencies overseeing the program have top- notch management. And it’s vital that the state properly assist and evaluate mentally ill people accused of crimes.
