May 06, 2008 - Abuse Common in Texas Mental Hospitals

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May 6, 2008 - At least 72 employees at state mental hospitals in Texas have been dismissed over the past three years for assaulting patients, according to a report released yesterday.

Hundreds more mental health workers have been fired for other disturbing violations such as over-medicating the patients or sleeping while on duty. Many hospital employees were disciplined for threatening the patients with violence and placing them in chokeholds and headlocks. Physical abuses included a female patient who was molested in a bathroom and a teenager dragged across the room as he cried for his mother.

Employee records from the state's ten psychiatric hospitals were examined, going back to 2005.

Critics of the Texas mental health system say the state should spend more money on the psychiatric hospitals as well as on community-based services for the mentally ill.

Texas Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, who has bipolar disorder, said the state has been financially dumbing down its programs and services for the mentally ill and is now getting what it paid for. << back