80 Years of Control by Democrats and.......

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- A West Virginia circuit judge is well within his rights to hold a hearing on mental health care services, the state Supreme Court has ruled in a stinging decision that says conditions of "Dickensian squalor'' are present in one psychiatric hospital.

The court on Friday rejected a bid by the state Department of Health and Human Resources to block Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom from holding an evidentiary hearing into crowded conditions at state psychiatric hospitals.

In the unsigned opinion, the court discounted both the health department's argument that Bloom was overstepping his bounds and violating the separation of church and state, and its claim that conditions in state hospitals have significantly improved since a 1981 court case that changed how mental health care is provided in West Virginia.

"Despite the DHHR's argument to the contrary, many of the same issues that were present in 1981'' remain present today, the court found, specifically at the Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Huntington.

That hospital was the subject of a July 2008 report by the Office of the Ombudsman for Behavioral Health, which drew attention to crowded conditions and low morale among staff members.

"The portrait that emerges from the Ombudsman's reports is that of a hospital that is overcrowded with patients, most of whom are frustrated by living on top of each other, being denied privacy and not having daily access to basic grooming needs,'' the court said in its decision.

The court wrote that the term "Dickensian squalor,'' used in the 1981 case to describe the state's mental health facilities, "is an apt description of the hospital'' described in the ombudsman's report.

DHHR spokesman John Law said Monday the department is reviewing the court's decision, but did not have an immediate comment on its findings.

Bloom had called for the evidentiary hearing after the ombudsman's report. Bloom also wants the state to explain its plan for providing care to people with traumatic brain injury. The health department agreed on a 2001 plan for treatment of the ailment that was modified in 2007.

Mental health care advocates hailed the court's decision Monday as a significant victory.

"It gives everybody an opportunity to present the facts and hopefully, the opportunity to redevelop community mental health services,'' said Ted Johnson, chairman of the West Virginia Mental Health Planning Council.

Both Bateman and William R. Sharpe Hospital in Weston have been persistently overcrowded for several years. Advocates like the West Virginia Mental Health Care Providers Association say a lack of funding for community-based services have left acute care hospitals as the only resort for many West Virginians.

Both Bateman and William R. Sharpe Hospital in Weston have been persistently overcrowded for several years.