The ever increasing shortage of psychiatric beds in Colorado sounds ominous alarms for those who man the frontlines of mental health care. It also sounds ominous alarms for the citizens of Colorado.
This January the University of Colorado closed its 24 bed inpatient unit. In September Governor Ritter eliminated 59 beds at Ft. Logan, the state hospital in Denver. Colorado now ranks 50th in the United States in the number of beds per capita.
Nationally, Colorado ranks 9th in suicides per capita.
The vast majority of mentally ill are not violent. Certain subgroups are. Evergreen resident John Hinckley, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, nearly succeeded in his attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Harris and Klebold, perpetrators of the Columbine massacre, desperately needed inpatient psychiatric care. In 2007, a State Trooper fatally wounded 32 year old Richard Snyder as he was making his way to Governor Ritter’s office. He proclaimed himself an emperor who planned “to take over the state of Colorado.” Snyder was armed, delusional, and desperately in need of a psychiatric bed.
Within an 8 month period in 1979-1980 four men suffering from grandiose and paranoid delusions committed homicides in the Denver area. The victims included a Secret Service agent, a State Trooper, an RTD bus driver, and a young Air Force veteran. These homicides spurred the State Legislature to appropriate funds to open an inpatient unit in 1981 at Ft. Logan for the express purpose of treating violent patients.
The film “A Beautiful Mind” brilliantly depicts the distorted perceptions and twisted thinking of a broken brain. The film falls short of fully touching the terrors of a paranoid psychosis. Ritter’s would be assassin also had a beautiful mind. Snyder was a high school valedictorian who paid the ultimate price for a lethal mental illness he never asked for. He desperately needed a psychiatric bed.
The University advertises that it is the “identifier of the first gene that carries the risk for schizophrenia.” It then turns around and shuts down the very unit that would treat those tormented souls. It shifts the burden of treatment to centers like Denver Health, which is already over taxed by the treatment needs of “the sickest of the sickest” patients.
In closing the beds, the University continues its “step child” treatment of Psychiatry, the most complex of all medical specialties. It defies the very definition of what a University is meant to be. It praises itself for its commitment to education, research, and clinical care. Then the University pulls the plug on psychiatric beds.
Despite more than ample space at the Center, less than optimal planning and underestimation of patient volume has flooded its ER with medical and surgical patients. Conversion of psychiatric beds to med/surg beds abandons those suffering from severe mental illnesses and the families who suffer along with them.
The State’s reduction of beds ties the hands of the professionals who strive to treat the afflicted. It inevitably will accelerate the spinning of the revolving door, that cycle of hospitalization, rapid discharge, incarceration, and too little treatment. The battle for beds occurs every day and every night in the ER’s and psychiatric inpatient units of metro medical centers, but not at the University.
Ritter’s surgical approach to fiscal pain slashes vital psychiatric care. He is like the tree surgeon who saws off the very limb upon which he stands. But for the alert reaction of the Trooper, he might have no limb to stand on at all. Saber Bill has gone too far.
Although the First Lady is a powerhouse of an advocate for the mentally ill, she cannot do it alone. She is a Jeannie, not a genie.
Both the University and the Governor have failed the mentally ill, their providers, and the citizens of Colorado. The State of Colorado has passed the buck and dropped the ball. It has robbed Peter to pay Paul.
Roger Helfrich is an associate clinical professor at the University of Colorado Department of Psychiatry. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
