Advocates Welcome Agreement to Name New "Transitional"
Receiver for District's Mental Health System
Washington DC, Wednesday, March 1, 2000—U.S. District Judge Thomas
F. Hogan today set 11:00 am, Monday, March 6, for a hearing on a joint
proposal filed yesterday by the parties in the long-standing lawsuit challenging
the adequacy of the city's public mental health system, Dixon v. Williams
(C.A. No. 74- 285), to replace the current receiver of the Commission
on Mental Health Services with a "transitional receiver" and impose new
obligations on the District of Columbia to implement the court's orders
in the case.
At an October 28, 1999 status hearing before the late Judge Aubrey Robinson,
mental health consumers, service providers, advocates and other stakeholders
in the city's public mental health system expressed serious concerns about
the slow pace of reform and system improvement during the two-and-a-half
year receivership. Ellen Harris, an attorney with the Bazelon Center for
Mental Health Law, which brought the class action lawsuit in 1974, said
the center expects to see increased progress toward compliance by the
city under the proposed transitional receivership.
"Today we have new hope that the mental health system can at last move
forward at a pace that takes seriously the plight of consumers addressed
by Judge Robinson in his humane and historic 1975 decision," said Robert
Bernstein, executive director of the Bazelon Center. "Compliance with
the Dixon order has been studied to death and planned to death; it's time
to accomplish it."
If the proposed agreement is approved by the court, Scott H. Nelson,
M.D., will leave the post of receiver on March 31, 2000. Dennis R. Jones,
who has consulted for the city and in 1995 conducted a management audit
of the city's mental health system, will then be appointed as "transitional
receiver," responsible for developing a "cost-effective plan for implementing
the court's orders and decrees." Mr. Jones will designate an acting chief
operating officer to be responsible for day-to-day operation of the mental
health system and assist him in implementing the court's orders.
The current court orders requiring the city to create an effective community
mental health system will remain in effect and the agreement, if approved,
will impose additional conditions on the District both prior to and after
day-to-day control of the system returns to the city's control. The city
seeks return of system operations by April 2001.
The transitional receiver will determine when the system can return to
the city, and will specify a probationary period after the return, during
which the transitional receiver will continue to monitor operations. Only
when the transitional receiver certifies that the city has the capacity
to implement and is implementing the plan he develops would the receivership
end.
The agreement requires Mr. Jones to consult regularly with class members
and other consumers, mental health service providers and other stakeholders
in the mental health system in monitoring operations and making recommendations
to the court.
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The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law is the leading legal advocacy
organization representing people with mental illness and mental retardation.
For more information on the Bazelon Center, please visit www.bazelon.org.
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