Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida lawmakers deserve credit for improving the prognosis for a successful closure of G. Pierce Wood, the state mental hospital in Arcadia that serves the Tampa Bay area. After early squabbling, lawmakers agreed to put an extra $27-million, the full amount Bush had recommended, into the community mental-health programs needed to serve the hospital's former residents. They also made clear that no resident may be discharged until those services are in place. Their action should go a long way toward helping Florida avoid the pitfalls that have historically accompanied deinstitutionalization. It is the state's responsibility to ensure that closure proves as good for the individuals involved as for the local communities they will soon call home.

The Legislature had little time to waste. Since last year, the Department of Children and Families has pushed ahead on an ambitious schedule that calls for a freeze on hospital admissions by this summer and the transfer of most mental-health patients into surrounding districts -- including the new "Suncoast" region encompassing Pinellas, Hillsborough and Pasco and other counties -- by the spring of 2002. Lawmakers gave DCF a green light but added in their final budget a cautionary proviso: DCF must, before moving any resident, certify that "an appropriate individualized placement alternative [is} available . . . with all necessary community supports."

DCF has done a admirable job so far preparing for the transition, but much work remains. For services to be up and running by early next year, DCF must provide new money to communities under an equitable formula that does not penalize counties such as Pinellas that have long invested in mental-health services. It is important that those steps be taken quickly; it is more important that the changes be made correctly.

The planned closure offers individuals with mental illness the hope of more productive lives, and it offers communities the civic contributions such individuals can bring. But prior experiments with deinstitutionalization teach us that when money and services do not follow patients, they can end up untreated, on the street or in jail, at untold cost to themselves and their communities. Lawmakers did right by trying to ensure that history won't repeat itself with G. Pierce Wood.

Recent coverage

Trading crisis for caring (April 6, 2001)

Hospital's closing worries advocates (April 2, 2001)

The town that lost its job (February 27, 2001)

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