Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Mental health treatment center evaluates inmates

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas For the past year, inmates serving state prison time and in need of mental health treatment are being treated at the new, state-of-the-art facility in Los Lunas.

Construction of the new 104-bed Mental Health Treatment Center, located at the Central New Mexico Correctional Facility in Los Lunas, was completed last February. The 58,000-square-foot facility is the first unit in the state that is designed specifically for mental-health treatment.

Mental Health Treatment Center (MHTC) includes 90-square-foot cells, an isolation room for inmates who may need to be protected from themselves, treatment rooms within each cell area and a closed-circuit monitoring system.

David Wells, assistant mental health bureau chief and staff manager of the MHTC, says the center's main objective is to receive and treat inmates who have been identified at other prison facilities as not being able to function adequately in that population because of suspected mental disorders.

"What we do is we take these individuals, observe them and get a better picture of what is wrong," Wells said. "We then develop a diagnostic criteria."

MHTC is divided into two areas, Wells said. The first area is for inmates who display acute, or emergency, symptoms. Wells explained an inmate with an acute disorder may be someone who has attempted suicide.

"What we'll do is watch them closely so they're not able to harm themselves," Wells said. "We'll stabilize these patients through individual treatment or medications until we feel they are able to released out of the acute setting."

The other unit is the chronic care unit that is designed for long-term treatment. During an inmate's stay in this unit, they are more closely observed to determine what, if any, mental health treatment is needed.

"Ultimately, the goal is to get them to return and function in a general population setting," Wells said. "We develop treatment plans and goals, and we are required to record progress or lack-there-of on a regular basis."

Depending on the individual, the average stay in the MHTC is 90 days, Wells said. Each treatment plan is scheduled for 90 day intervals and after it's completed, it's reviewed and the question is asked, "Is the issue that brought the inmate to the center resolved?"

If not, the inmate will continue treatment for another 90 days. The goal, Wells said, is not to keep them in an acute hospital, rather to get the inmates functioning at an adequate level.

With a staff of 20 councelors and two psychiatrists per unit, inmates who are being treated in the acute unit will be assessed and then will moved through a level system. Each level is basically an increase in privileges.

"After they've achieved all three levels, they are either sent back to their facilities or placed in the chronic units," Wells said. "In those units, we have both individual and group therapy conducted by the councelors.

"We have vocational education programs — woodworking and ceramics," he said. "We also have recreational programming, which includes typical activities and gardening."

Wells said mental health treatment for inmates is very critical for several reasons. Just by virtue of the prison population, inmates tend to have a higher proportion of individual mental health disorders.

According to Wells, the national average of inmates in need of mental health treatment is about 15 percent of the population.

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