RALEIGH - Two panels appointed by the Easley administration to review North Carolina's mental health system have filed scathing reports that call for reversing bungled reforms implemented during the last seven years, saying deep cuts to hospital beds and treatment have endangered lives.

Among the key recommendations:

* Adding at least 717 full-time employees at state mental hospitals to meet patient-to-staff ratios needed to ensure safety.

* Adding psychiatric treatment beds to both the state hospital system and private facilities.

* Increasing pay to attract and retain qualified staff at the state hospitals.

* Adding trained investigators with law-enforcement experience to review complaints of abuse and neglect at the hospitals.

The reports were completed more than two weeks ago but were not made public by the state Department of Health and Human Services. Fully implementing the recommendations would cost far more than the $68 million in new mental health spending Easley has proposed for next year.

Mike Pedneau, chairman of the group assigned to review the mental hospitals, said Friday he feared the reports, sent to DHHS Secretary Dempsey Benton, would be deep-sixed. The stakes are too high and the needs too great to keep quiet, he said.

"It's going to get buried until the legislature is ready to put the budget to bed," said Pedneau, a former director of the state mental heath system. "I think these things need to be out in the public and I gave Dempsey two weeks and I haven't heard a thing from him."

Benton called a news conference Jan. 3 and pledged before a bank of television cameras that he would carry out Easley's instructions to fix a mental health system that has wasted more than $400 million while leaving thousands of patients and their families struggling to find adequate treatment.

To help him, Benton announced the creation of three work groups composed of people outside his department such as former state facility managers, advocates, representatives from private hospitals and private providers of mental health services.

Two groups -- the Hospital Management and Operations work group and the Crisis Services work group -- filled detailed reports May 13 and 14 that call for a drastic change of course.

But there has not been any word from the secretary's office about the recommendations -- no news conference, no press releases, no posts on the department's web site.

"It's not been a secret, by any means," Benton said Friday. "It's been public. I distributed the report to the legislative oversight committee."

Rep. Verla Insko, the co-chair of the legislative oversight committee for mental health, said Friday that was news to her.

"Really?" Insko, a Democrat from Chapel Hill, said when told of Benton's comment. "I have not seen either one of those reports. I have not received them."

No report has yet been filed by the third work group, which was assigned to review the safety and operational concerns at the new Central Regional Hospital, as well as review the plan to close Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and John Umstead Hospital in Butner.

The first patients are set to arrive at the new $120 million hospital on Father's Day, just over two weeks away.

Benton said he did not know whether the group would finish its review of the plan to open the hospital before the hospital opens. That panel was chaired by Daniel Stewart, Benton's deputy secretary.

Staffing, pay lag

The report filed by Pedneau's group found staffing ratios and pay at North Carolina's mental hospitals lag far behind similar facilities in Tennessee and Texas.

"We firmly believe that current levels of staffing are inherently dangerous and ... additional staff are essential!" the report says.

An acute shortage of treatment beds is leading to a revolving door at the state hospitals, with patients routinely discharged before they are stable -- sometimes directly to homeless shelters. The rapid discharges and delays of more than a month to see a doctor on the outside are leading to increased readmissions, further straining the system.

"What we've got is bone-headed," Pedneau said of the system. "It makes no sense. The taxpayers should be angry."

Benton said the governor's proposed budget does address some issues outlined in the report -- spending $7 million to add 107 new positions at the state hospitals and $22 million to boost treatment beds in private hospitals.

When asked whether he stood by assurances made five months ago that the mental health system would be fixed before Easley's term ends in January, the secretary said:

"I think 'fixed' is a term that is a long-term view. I think we're fixing the plan of how to do it. ... We're setting the course in the right direction."

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