RALEIGH - A bill mandating tougher scrutiny of death in state mental hospitals was ratified by the state legislature today and is headed to Gov. Mike Easley for his signature.

Easley's office said last week he will sign the bill into law.

The measure follows a series of articles in The News & Observer in March that detailed 82 questionable patient deaths in state mental hospitals and homes for people with developmental disabilities. Many of those patients' bodies were buried or cremated without being autopsied or examined by a pathologist.

The new law would ensure that all deaths in state-run hospitals and homes for the developmentally disabled will receiver a formal review by a state medical examiner.

State law already requires that deaths resulting from homicide, suicide, accidents or unknown causes be reported to a medical examiner. The N&O's review of patient deaths in the state's 14 mental institutions since December 2000 showed that some recorded as "natural" were known by staff to have died of symptoms related to shoddy care.

Last month, a state pathologist formally reissued a death certificate in a case highlighted by the newspaper, changing the cause of death from a heart attack to suicide by drug overdose.

Dr. John Butts, the state's chief medical examiner, said last week the new law will put similar procedures in place for state mental hospitals that are already required for deaths in prison or police custody.

All mental hospital deaths would have to be reported to a local medical examiner, who will then assume jurisdiction over the body. The pathologist will then be required to independently determine the cause of death and file a written report to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Chapel Hill.

Those written reports will be public records. Until now, the state Department of Health and Human Services has refused to identify those who died in its facilities, arguing that making the names public would violate the dead patients' rights to privacy.

The state budget Easley signed earlier this week provides the medical examiner's office with money to hire a full-time investigator to review state hospital deaths.

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