Two questions need to be asked about an Associated Press report that West Virginia's state mental hospitals are overcrowded. First: Why? Second, what should be done about it?
A total of 240 beds are available at the state's two acute-care psychiatric hospitals, in Weston and Huntington. One, the William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital in Weston, is relatively new. It was opened in 1994 to replace the old state mental hospital in the same town.
But according to the AP, the state is handling 379 mental health patients who have been committed involuntarily. They are people judged by the state to be in need of care, in some cases because they may be threats to the well being of themselves or others.
Because not enough beds are available at the two state facilities, overflow patients are sent to private hospitals. The state pays for their treatment. Some of those committed involuntarily, including those charged with crimes, must be kept at the state hospitals.
Some legislators think the state should expand its psychiatric care treatment system. The issue is being looked into by the state Bureau for Behavioral Health and Health Facilities.
Spending taxpayers' money to build and operate new facilities would be a knee-jerk reaction - which is not to say that such a response would be inappropriate. More needs to be known about the situation before any decisions are made, however.
High on the priority list for investigation should be why demand for psychiatric care has increased.
In 2000, the state dealt with 5,553 petitions seeking involuntary commitment of mental health patients, according to the AP. By 2006 the number had shot up to 8,887. That is an increase of approximately 60 percent.
It is difficult if not impossible to believe that during less than a decade, the percentage of West Virginians with mental illnesses requiring involuntary commitment increased so drastically. Why, then, did requests for involuntary commitment balloon? And why are more people being committed against their wills?
Before anything else is done to address the problem of overcrowding at state mental hospitals, those two questions need to be answered.