A patient at a Virginia state-run mental hospital lay flat on her back, bound hand and foot in heavy leather restraints, for hundreds of hours until she died. At another Virginia psychiatric hospital, a patient died after the hospital failed to treat her despite her complaints and warnings from family that she was dying. The state cabinet secretary responsible for the mental-health system promised last month to raise confidence in the system and improve patients' rights protection.
Human rights is a very critical issue.
The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating Virginia's mental hospitals since 1990 for what it says is inadequate patient care that has led to dangerous, sometimes life-threatening situations. Lawsuits were settled last summer in cases involving Eastern State Hospital, Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute and Northern Virginia Training Center, which cares for the mentally retarded. Laurie Flynn of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill said no state has more federal mental-health investigations as Virginia. Gloria Huntley, a patient at Central State Hospital, died in June 1996 after lying in restraints for 300 hours, including two stretches of nearly 110 hours straight, as punishment for outbursts against staff. A memo written a year earlier by her former doctor warned restraints could kill Huntley because she suffered from asthma and epilepsy.