Mentally ill woman dumped on bench

By NANCY COOK LAUER

Stephens Media

Three Hawaii County police officers dragged an apparently catatonic 68-year-old woman out of a patrol car Saturday, propped her up on a bench at the Mooheau Terminal and advised her to take a bus and go home.

The incident was a heartbreaking portrayal of what happens when a down economy rips through the safety net of social services designed to help those who can least help themselves, said an advocate for the mentally ill.

The woman, whom police officers called “Erika,” was unresponsive, sitting rigidly with her head down and wrists crossed at her neck, while the officers spoke to her in gentle and respectful tones, insisting that she take the 9:15 a.m. Kona bus. The officers milled around helplessly for a while,
obviously reluctant to leave.

Then the police got into their cars and drove away, leaving Erika alone on the bench.

South Hilo Patrol Capt. Robert Wagner, when contacted by Stephens Media on Monday, said the police have very few options when it comes to the homeless and mentally ill. The woman known as Erika, however, apparently has a home in Honokaa, thus the admonition to take the Kona cross-island bus. It’s not known if she has family.

Wagner said the police picked up the woman Friday, responding to reports she was walking in traffic on Kinoole Street. He said she was taken to Hilo Medical Center.

The hospital called the next morning, Wagner said, and asked the police to pick her up, or they would file trespassing charges against her. He said the woman did not want to leave the hospital.

Hospital marketing director Mary Stancill said Tuesday that Hilo Medical Center is one of only two secure acute in-patient 24/7 behavior health centers on the island, and thus handles a lot of crisis interventions.

Stancill declined to comment on any specific case. But she said in an email that people will often come to a behavioral health center for nonmedical needs such as shelter, food and drugs for their addictions.

“While often we meet those needs in the course of treatment, we have an obligation to make sure we have beds available for patients who are legitimately suffering from an acute illness,” Stancill said in a statement. “Only when necessary, the police are called to assist in maintaining the safety of visitors to the hospital.”

Wagner said police are not mental health experts, so they had to take the experts’ word for it that the woman did not need treatment, even though she apparently insisted she did. He said the woman seemed by turns “asleep” and “responsive” when the police talked with her in the car on the short drive from the hospital to the bus station.

“She thinks she did need medical attention,” Wagner said. “We took her to the experts; they said she was good to go.”

Wagner said the police do get some training in evaluating a person’s mental state, but “We’re not doctors; we’re police officers.”

The officers had planned to take her to the Salvation Army, he said, but the facility was closed on Saturday morning.

When told about the incident, Kathleen Hasegawa, executive director of the Hawaii chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said the whole affair sounded “hideous.”

Hasegawa said psychiatric facilities in the state, such as Hawaii State Hospital, are pretty much filled with the criminally insane. Psychiatric beds in other hospitals are full as well.

“What we’re seeing now, there are only a few beds for people who have mental illnesses, and these beds are very, very hard to get into,” Hasegawa said.

Hawaii’s mental health budget was trimmed by $12.9 million, a drop of 7.1 percent, between fiscal year 2009 and 2011, according to a November study by NAMI. The following year, $4.2 million was restored, bringing the 2012 budget to $172.7 million. At the same time, the state lost an estimated $90 million in federal Medicaid matching funds.

“We felt bad, but there was no place to take her,” Wagner said. “It’s not against the law to be mentally ill.”

Email Nancy Cook Lauer at ncook-lauer@westhawaiitoday.com