Lawrence Journal-World opinion section

Apparently unable to address the underlying staffing problems at Larned State Hospital, state officials are engaging in what a representative of a state employee group called a “shell game” to temporarily ease stress on the Larned hospital staff.

According to news reports, the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services will begin today to transfer 60 state inmates with mental health needs from special units at Larned State Hospital to the nearby Larned Correctional Facility operated by the Kansas Department of Corrections. The action will reverse a 2006 agreement between the two agencies that was designed to ease overcrowding at the correctional facility’s mental health unit. After transferring the inmates, KDADS will close two state hospital units and hopes to free up staff members at those units to beef up staffing in other parts of the hospital.

It’s a temporary move, said KDADS Secretary Tim Keck, intended to ease understaffing that is requiring employees to work long overtime hours and perhaps compromising safety at Larned State Hospital, one of two remaining state hospitals for people with serious mental illness.

To make room for the inmates leaving the state hospital, 60 inmates will have to be transferred from the Larned Correctional Facility to other state correctional facilities, which then will have to transfer general population inmates to county jails around the state. Hence, the “shell game” reference.

KDADS spokeswoman Angela de Rocha told a Wichita newspaper that inmates being moved from the hospital “will get the same treatment” at the adjacent correctional facility. “The way that the state is addressing their mental health issues will not change.”

Is the status quo good enough? KDADS is making this move because it couldn’t adequately staff the state hospital unit. Will the correctional facilities, in Larned and elsewhere, that will receive these transfers be able to attract enough skilled professional staff to provide the same or better care?

In the meantime, Osawatomie State Hospital, the state’s other facility for people with serious mental illness continues to operate without the benefit of $1 million a month in federal funding after losing its Medicare certification in December. The facility lost that funding at least in part because federal officials found understaffing problems that compromised safety at the hospital.

The “temporary” moves at Larned may prevent a similar circumstance, but it doesn’t solve the serious problems facing these hospitals. The state needs to be looking at a longer-term strategy to serve the state’s need for residential mental health facilities.