Presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal plans to create a labor pool for Fox “News” by opening the gates of the East Louisiana State Mental Hospital. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit. But I can’t resist the opportunity to take shots at the looney-tunes network. Indeed, former New York Times executive editor, Howell Raines, criticized the mainstream media last week for failing to adequately challenge the Fox ”News” abuses. It was a strange criticism coming from a journalist who acted as cheerleader for the NYT Times abuses that inspired and perpetuated the Whitewater investigation—a $70-million charade that caused irreparable damage to the country by helping elect George W. Bush. More substantive regarding Fox “News” is a lengthy article in this month’s Columbia Journalism Review. It will be the topic of another blog post. Meantime, back to Bobby Jindal. 

The ambitious Governor apparently will do just about anything to enhance his conservative image, including cutting back the health services of people, who are the least likely to cast ballots for him in future elections. To reduce spending in the wake of Louisiana’s budget shortfall, his Administration has been carving away programs in the Department of Health and Hospitals. DHH reductions include, Medicaid payments to doctors, reduced home health care for the disabled and large-scale of layoffs of state employees. Additionally, Earl K. Long Hospital—the primary treatment facility for the poor in Baton Rouge—is being closed and its services taken over by Lady of the Lake Hospital. The Lake is a fine facility, but it is a long way from the city’s most populated low income neighborhoods. 

Most recently, the sharpened budget knife is directed at mental health services. During a town hall hearing this month in Jackson—the home of East Louisiana State Hospital and a majority of its employees—plans were revealed to reduce patient beds at the facility by moving about one-third of its patients to a scattering of private group homes. Other states around the country, including DSS Secretary Alan Levine’s old stomping grounds of Florida, have experienced mixed results with so-called privatization. In theory, the principle is sound. But as a practical matter, privatization runs the risk of profiteering by companies contracted to operate the programs. Too often, the bottom line is more important than the quality of treatment, includes administering drugs to patients in proper doses and on  prescribed timetables. Patients frequently get lost in this system—regardless of whether they are treated by private or by public agencies. A symptom of mental problems is refusing to acknowledge and/or treat the illness.

Forty years ago, I produced a radio documentary about the sprawling, plantation-like East Louisiana State Hospital—then with a census of 2400 patients. That is six times the current number of beds. My report aired at a time when the hospital was notorious for its ancient treatment methods. I have a vivid memory of what was known as “Colony Nine,” a unit in which severely impaired patients clad in gowns or naked marched aimlessly around rooms with tile floors. They were not toilet trained. Hence, the stink was overwhelming. Every few hours, they would rotate to a second room while they other was hosed down.

At the time of my story, the catch word in mental health treatment in Louisiana and across the nation was “deinstitutionalization.” Large numbers of patients were released and told to report to publicly operated clinics to receive their medications. Many failed to comply and there was an immediate increase in the population of street people everywhere the rapid release plan was implemented. 

I’m not suggesting that mentally ill folks be kept locked-up. But cutbacks that reduce the number of beds in facilities such as East Louisiana State Hospital require carefully planned and executed alternative treatment programs. Most forms of mental illness can be controlled by proper levels of medications. And in some instances, patients fully recover as a result of pyschiatric counseling.

So as Bobby Jindal flies around the country raising campaign money from fat-cats, I hope he sets aside his national aspirations for a moment to consider the impact of budget reductions that effect people with voices that are so weak they are never heard by politicians. Otherwise, the streets of every city in Louisiana will display even more visible evidence of the failure to properly treat mentally ill patients.

Worse, Fox “News” will hire commentators crazier than the ones now on the network. Sorry. But I just can’t seem to control myself. And yes, I know there are clinics to treat my Fox obsession.