RALEIGH -- A judge lifted a yearlong restraining order Wednesday, allowing state mental health officials to move ahead with plans to transfer patients from Raleigh's Dorothea Dix Hospital to a new facility in Butner.
Dix will remain open. At least 100 mental patients will be housed in units at the 153-year-old mental hospital for the foreseeable future as the state struggles to cope with a serious shortage of psychiatric hospital beds. Patients often languish for days in emergency rooms waiting for a spot to open up at one of the four state hospitals.
The advocacy group Disability Rights North Carolina successfully petitioned a judge in September 2008 to halt the state's planned move from Dix because of safety concerns at the new Central Regional Hospital, about 30 minutes north of Raleigh.
Now, lawyers for Disability Rights say the state has made significant progress in fixing the problems at Central Regional. John Rittelmeyer, the group's legal director, told Superior Court Judge Carl Fox Wednesday that he no longer opposed the state's request to lift the restraining order.
In exchange for dropping its opposition, Disability Rights won pledges from the state to keep adequate staff at Central Regional and increase services provided to patients there.
"Going forward, [we] will continue to monitor conditions at the hospital, speak to the patients treated there and make certain that the gains achieved in the last year are maintained," Vicki Smith, executive director of Disability Rights, said in a written statement.
Lanier Cansler, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, said he appreciated the group's concerns, adding, "obviously, we want patients to be safe and to provide quality care."
For much of the last decade, the state had planned to close Dix and transfer all patients to Central Regional. The $138 million hospital partially opened in July 2008, but reports soon surfaced of a faulty alarm system, insufficient staffing and instances of patients being physically abused by staff members.
Since the restraining order took effect last year, chronic bed shortages have forced state officials to back away from plans to close Dix, which will remain open indefinitely. That decision puts the dreams of Raleigh leaders to turn the sprawling hospital campus into a park in limbo.
Beginning in November, about 55 long-term, geriatric and adolescent patients will be moved from Dix to the Butner hospital. A group of 50 patients will also be transferred sometime after the first of the year.
Dix to stay open
A 60-bed adult admissions unit is to remain at Dix under a contract between the state and Wake County. A unit for treating minimum-security patients who were involuntarily committed after being accused of a crime will also stay.
Dix will continue to operate a long-term unit for children, while minors who need short-term care will go to Central Regional. The children's unit at the former John Umstead Hospital in Butner, criticized for poor conditions that include mold and roach infestation, will be closed.
Cansler, who took office in January, said the mistakes made in Butner will provide good guidance about what not to do as the state breaks ground soon on a facility in Goldsboro to replaceCherry Hospital.
"Lessons were learned at Central Regional," he said.
