The Joplin Globe, Joplin, MO

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October 27, 2009

Kansas: Panel backs closing state hospital in Topeka

The Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas commission is recommending that the state close its hospital for the mentally disabled in Topeka and move more patients into group homes.

The closure would leave the state with just the Parsons State Hospital and Training Center. Officials estimate the proposals for the Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka and the Parsons hospital would save the state at least $5.7 million a year.

But Facilities Closure and Realignment Commission members said Tuesday their bigger goal is improving the lives of disabled Kansas residents by having them live in less restrictive settings, such as group homes.

Closing the Topeka hospital would be part of a long-term national trend away from large state hospitals. A University of Colorado study last year said eight states no longer run such institutions for the mentally disabled.

“They want to have the joy and comforts of home,” said state Rep. Bob Bethell, an Alden Republican, a commission member. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Still, the recommendations have upset some patients’ family members and guardians. They worry about the effect on severely disabled hospital residents if they’re forced to move.

Ann Perrin Riggs, of Topeka, a former special education teacher who is guardian to a 28-year-old Kansas Neurological Institute resident, George Reed, said he’s already living in a group home on the hospital’s campus. She said he’s severely disabled and has had behavioral problems and is receiving excellent services there.

“I really feel a feeling of desperation,” she said Tuesday. “It’s not only for me and George. I have other people I know who live there. The thought of taking KNI away from them — it truly breaks my heart.”

The commission’s recommendations will go to Gov. Mark Parkinson, who has the option of issuing executive orders by mid-February to put them into the effect. An order from the Democratic governor would take effect unless one house of the Republican-controlled Legislature voted within 60 days to reject it.

Parkinson spokeswoman Beth Martino said he will wait for the commission’s full report before making decisions.

The commission wrapped up its work Tuesday, a day after voting 7-3 to recommend closing KNI. Some KNI patients would move to the Parsons hospital, but others would move to group homes.

The commission also recommends that some Parsons patients move into group homes. Some commission members hope Parsons’ patient population would then decline. Parsons has 192 patients and KNI has 157.

The Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which operates both hospitals, has identified 49 KNI patients as eligible for group homes. The department said 62 Parsons patients could be moved into group homes.

The commission recommended that the department further examine its standards for moving patients into group homes, and members said the number of patients who move from hospital to hospital or into group homes could change.

The trend nationally is toward having the mentally disabled live in groups of six or fewer. Last year’s University of Colorado study said that in 1990, 23 percent of mentally disabled Americans lived in such small group homes, but by 2006, the figure was 70 percent, the study said.

And Kansas Commission Chairwoman Rochelle Chronister, a former social and rehabilitation services secretary, said the state’s experience is that disabled Kansans thrive more in less restrictive settings.

“That is where people are most successful, even people who are the most severely handicapped,” Chronister said.

But Riggs doubts community-based programs could provide services as well as KNI for Reed, who can’t recognize numbers and needs some help with bathing, grooming and dressing. She also said she wouldn’t move him to Parsons.

“Topeka is his community. He knows people all over town,” she said. “His church is here. His grandma is here. There’s would no way that I would take him away from that.”

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