Haverford State Hospital Lawsuit Reaches Final Stage

The state has acknowledged the rights of people with severe mental illnesses to live in appropriate housing in the community, rather than in an institution, under the terms of a settlement affirmed last month in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

And advocates now say they are ready to move forward and talk about closing psychiatric hospitals throughout the Commonwealth in order to make sure this right is affirmed for all Pennsylvanians with severe mental illnesses.

The settlement was the final stage in a lawsuit filed by mental health advocates on behalf of patients at Haverford State Hospital, which closed on June 30, 1998.

Advocates filed the suit when the state refused to commit to a comprehensive placement plan for the residents and instead made plans to move them to Norristown State Hospital.

When District Court Judge Raymond Broderick ruled against the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW) on June 26, 1998, and set a timetable for moving the patients out of Norristown and into the community, the state appealed.

Later that summer, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a decision now referred to as Olmstead that people with mental disabilities have the right to appropriate residential placement in the community.

Although the state did not drop its appeal, it continued to abide by Broderick's ruling, and in the past 18 months has found housing for many of the 255 people who were originally covered under the lawsuit.

Today, said attorney Robert Meek, who brought the suit, only 47 former Haverford patients are still waiting at Norristown for placements. Under the terms of the settlement, which agrees to follow almost exactly the same timetable as the one set by Broderick in his original ruling, all of these people should be moved out of Norristown by June 30.

The only difference is that one deadline in the timetable has been changed from December 31, 1999, to March 31, 2000. "In our view, this settlement pretty much gives us everything we were awarded by the court in 1998 with a minor change in the timing of the discharge of one of the sub-classes," said Meek, who works with the Disabilities Law Project in Philadelphia.

Joseph A. Rogers, executive director of MHASP, and an advocate who was involved in the decision to file the suit in 1998, said he believes it is good to have some kind of closure in the suit.

"It's been a long road from closing Haverford to assuring that appropriate replacement services in the community are guaranteed to consumers," he said. "In many ways this settlement is anticlimactic, since the state has moved rapidly forward to put community-based programs in place. But it's always good to have the federal courts monitor and protect the rights of patients."

Rogers said that with Olmstead behind them, advocates are now targeting their efforts at closing Norristown and other state psychiatric hospitals.

"The Olmstead decision has affirmed the rights asserted under this Haverford decision, that patients have the right to be in the community and not necessarily be institutionalized. We plan to move forward and assert this right throughout the Commonwealth."