Fix it

DHHR needs to quickly address needs of Bateman’s psychiatric patients As a newspaper, part of our job is to go to bat for people who otherwise might not have a voice. Often, those people are living in deplorable conditions and have no resources for changing their plight. In the case of patients at an overcrowded, understaffed psychiatric hospital in Huntington, people who are reported to be forced to live three in a room, and some without a bathroom, they need someone to go to bat for them. The Office of the Ombudsman for Behavioral Health has taken the first step by conducting a study at the Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Huntington. Their conclusion: “Staff believe that the hospital, when it is over-bedded, is an accident waiting to happen.” Their office reported its findings to the Department of Health and Human... [read full story]