LARNED ? State inspectors say patients at Larned State Hospital face “an unsafe and deteriorating environment” after finding dozens of new violations at the state’s facility for the profoundly mentally ill.

Among the problems found in the report issued last week by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, were toilets that back up sewage into patients’ rooms, exposed wood that can’t be cleaned, rooms with blind spots where staff can’t monitor patient activity and a swingset considered too dangerous for children to use.

Worst of all is the hospital’s Crisis Stabilization Unit, which houses patients in psychiatric crisis until they are stable enough to move. Inspectors said the unit is so dilapidated – including sinks with no running water, sagging ceiling tiles and crumbling plaster walls – that it should be emptied of patients and rebuilt.

While the hospital’s budget expects construction on a new unit to begin in 2009, the inspection report warned waiting until then would leave patients “in an unsafe and deteriorating environment for another two to three years.”

Hospital officials have since sped up their timetable for a new unit, saying they move patients out of the crumbling facility by December.

The inspection, performed in April, follows a November inspection that found 150 health and safety violations. That study prompted a national accreditation body to do its own inspection of the hospital and downgrade its accreditation status.

It also led a state court judge to determine hospital officials tried to dissuade the kinds of patient complaints that led to the inspections by revoking earned privileges and placing additional restrictions on two patients who had filed suit over hospital conditions.

Officials at the hospital, which houses people with mental illness and sexual predators sent there after completing their prison sentences, said they’ve already performed many of the repairs outlined in the newest report.

For example, they’ve installed larger windows to eliminate blind spots in patient rooms, refinishing the playground equipment and are replacing or painting wooden furniture so it can be kept clean.

“I think we’re looking at significant improvement,” said Abbie Hodgson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, which operates the hospital.

But she acknowledged that some of the repairs will take more time.

“The CSU is something that’s just going to need to be gutted and renovated,” Hodgson said. “We have short-run and long-run plans to do that. They’ll be moving the patients out of that building and hope to do that by Dec. 1.”

Hodgson said the report showed how hard it is to maintain an older, large-scale facility that is constantly used.