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Friday, October 21, 2005

Ind. Gov't. - FSSA holds local hearing on Evansville State Hospital

Evansville Courier&Press reporters Maureen Hayden and Jennifer Whitson team today to report at length on the FSSA hearing on the fate of Evansville State Hospital. Some quotes:

This "thing" is the proposal by Mitch Roob, the head of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, to transfer governance of the Evansville State Hospital from state bureaucrats in Indianapolis to a yet-to-be created, local nonprofit organization with a board made up of community leaders.

Roob, on the hot seat for much of the hearing, spent more than an hour trying to convince a skeptical crowd of mostly hospital employees of the benefits of his idea. But it was Spear's voice that many seemed to listen to most closely. [Hospital superintendent] Spear, long credited for bringing innovative new programs to the Southwestern Indiana Mental Health Center when he was director there, asked [former employee] Cundiff and others who attended the hearing to keep an open mind. "Be patient,'' Spear said. "I know you don't trust us, but I'm going to ask you to try to trust us for a while." Both Spear and Roob used the word "localization" instead of "privatization" to describe the proposal introduced by Roob earlier this year to shift operation of the three state psychiatric hospitals in Indiana into the hands of local, nonprofit agencies.

Roob said the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration - which currently operates and funds the Evansville State Hospital - should be a health-care financing agency, not a health-care provider. To bolster his argument, he noted that the major part of the agency's $6.3 billion annual budget currently goes to both nonprofit and for-profit organizations that provide health services to needy Hoosiers.

Roob said his proposal wasn't designed to cut immediate costs to the state, though he predicted failure to make the shift from a public to private facility would have dire consequences. Roob, citing declining census numbers at the three state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities, predicted "some bureaucrat from Indianapolis" would shut down the Evansville State Hospital in 20 years because of the lack of need. His prediction was met with skepticism from some hospital employees who reminded him the facility has a long list of prospective patients waiting for a bed to become available.

The Evansville story includes links to Roob's statement on "localizing" state hospitals, and to a draft proposal to potential providers.

For background, see these 10/9/05 and 10/15/05 ILB entries headed "FSSA urges 'localization,' not 'privatization,' at Richmond State Hospital."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 21, 2005 07:41 AM
Posted to Indiana Government