Court ends State Hospital
supervision after 13 years

A federal judge lauds state improvements
at the Kaneohe facility

After 13 years of federal court supervision, the state is free to operate its mental health hospital without anyone looking over its shoulder.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge David Ezra released the State Hospital yesterday from a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1991 because of overcrowded, unsafe and unsanitary conditions at the Kaneohe facility.

Ezra's action came at the urging of U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Chang, the court-ordered special master in the case, who cited substantial progress and dramatic change at the facility.

"I have every reason to believe that this will be the end to the problems at the State Hospital," Ezra said.

He also accepted Chang's recommendation to extend to June 2006 supervision over the state's community mental health services system.

State Attorney General Mark Bennett called the release of the State Hospital from the lawsuit a "tremendous achievement."

State Health Director Chiyome Fukino said, "Credit goes to the dedication and hard work of our hospital administration and staff that have created a place of quality care and treatment which now serves as a model to the rest of the nation."

Ezra also noted the improvements in the hospital.

He described a visit to the hospital more than 10 years ago a horrible experience, "like a scene out of a 19th-century insane asylum." He said he saw patients lying in their own urine and feces, patients running around naked and unsupervised activity between patients.

"There were clear violations of people's civil rights that were taking place," said Verlin Deerinwater, a Justice Department Civil Rights Division attorney.

When Ezra visited the hospital Thursday, the facility was spotless and airy, and the patients clean and properly supervised, he said.

"It really looks like a well-kept college campus," Ezra said.

Ezra credited the improvement to appropriate state funding.

Frustrated with the lack of progress in 1999, Ezra threatened to appoint a special master to run the hospital and seize state assets to pay for needed improvements.

The annual budget to run the hospital was about $13 million in 1991, said Hawaii State Hospital Administrator Paul Guggenheim. He said the budget to run the hospital is about $39 million today.

"The budget has tripled -- but it should never have tripled because it was so inadequate in the first place," said Guggenheim, the hospital's fifth administrator since 1991. He said today's budget allows the state to offer competitive salaries for better-qualified staff.

Deerinwater praised the improved conditions at the hospital but said the state has fallen behind schedule in implementing a plan to improve its delivery of community-based mental health services.

The previous deadline for the state to meet federal standards was this January.