Guilio Visciano, 43, tried to kill himself last December. Now, Meadowview Psychiatric Hospital in Secaucus plans to release him, but he says he doesn’t have adequate housing, rehabilitative services, or professional counseling. Visciano is the second patient in as many months to claim that the county-run hospital is releasing patients without an adequate followup plan. A spokesman for the county, the only person allowed to speak for Meadowview, declined to comment for this article due to pending litigation from another patient. Visciano claims the hospital administration wants him to leave the facility on because of his activities to gain patient rights.
Life at Meadowview
It is not unusual for psychiatric patients to protest their treatment. But Visciano said that his lawyer advocate agrees that some of his complaints are well-founded.
“Some of Visciano’s complaints are valid. He said he has not received any psychotherapy since he came to Meadowview [six-months ago],” said Lila Steele, patient advocate for the Office of the Public Defender in Newark. “He has also had his day passes restricted so that he cannot get to the [Secaucus] library to research release and housing options.”
William Emmett Dwyer, director of litigation at New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. in Trenton, said the crisis in New Jersey mental health care system has been going on for the past 20 years. He said allegations made by Visciano and other Meadowview clients are common from psychiatric patients.
“It has been the absolute failure of the state to develop community placement,” Dwyer said. “There is a refusal to see the problem. The only way these situations are kept up is by keeping them hidden.”
Institutionalized patients are often abandoned because discharge plans are lax and community placement unavailable, Dwyer said.
Visciano’s downward spiral
Visciano said he was once a commercial painter and artist with successful businesses in Miami and Boston. In 1989, the entrepreneur came to Jersey City where he had commissions from area clients. Two months later, he was involved in an auto crash.
The car rolled over several times, leaving Visciano unable to work.
“I was just getting started, and two months later, it all falls apart,” said Visciano.
Viciano said he became increasingly depressed because he could not put his life back together. In 1996, he was diagnosed with major depression and anxiety disorder. He said he eventually began to abuse alcohol and then his medication – Valium, an anti-anxiety agent prescribed by physicians for short-term relief, and Xanax, a sedative prescribed by physicians for panic attacks.
Visciano drifted along until December 19, 2004 when he attempted suicide. He said he was taken to Jersey City Medical Center, where he stayed for three weeks.
“I would see a doctor each morning, but he made no recommendations for a future plan or gave me any form of therapy,” Visciano said. “I thought I was about to go home when I was sent to Meadowview [Psychiatric Hospital]. I had 10 minutes to pack.”
Visciano said Meadowview planned to release him on Friday, although the results of a hearing were not known at press time. He also said there weren’t enough services when he was in there.
“There is no educational rehabilitation here,” he said, “no one-on-one therapy or even group therapy. We have art therapy and recreational groups. And we have meds.”
The artist-patient is currently taking daily doses of Paxil, an anti-depressant, Seroquel, an anti-psychotic, Klonopin, an anti-anxiety medication, and Ativan, an anti-anxiety drug used for depression.
Not just him
As noted in a Secaucus Reporter story from May 29, 2005, Donald Taylor, another patient at Meadowview, fought a six-month battle with hospital administration for patient rights and his own reclassification at the facility. Taylor committed himself to Meadowview in December because or severe long-term depression. But by the end of April, Taylor filed a class action against Meadowview because of the lack of adequate rehabilitative services and patient policies. He said he was asked to leave three days later.
At a June 16 commitment hearing presided over by Hudson County Municipal Court Judge Dennis L. McGill, Taylor said his classification for release was changed to CEPP, Conditional Extension Pending Placement. This means Taylor will now be allowed to stay at Meadowview until he can find adequate housing, Steele said. He said he is happy with the reclassification since he can now try to find suitable housing for the disabled in either Bayonne, where he is on a disabled housing waiting list, or in Secaucus, where he is attempting to get the necessary paperwork ready to apply. He said Meadowview provided little aid in his efforts to create a suitable release plan.
“They only offer to send you to a shelter or group home, without an adequate treatment or release plan,” Taylor said. “I have a new team of doctors and psychologists, but there are still problems with reaching the outside world by phone or in person. I hope I can find what I need on my own.”
Taylor said he will go before Judge McGill again June 30 to address the problem with receiving and getting calls at Meadowview. The hearing will also address his claim that his medical and legal charts disappeared from his bed at the hospital on June 11.
Finding a way out
Among the numerous motions that Taylor filed to the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division in Jersey City is one stating that Meadowview administration did not fulfill their obligations to issues raised by patients at a patient government council meeting in early April.
Taylor said one of the crucial issues regarding rehabilitation services including remedial education, updated and pertinent material in the hospital library, and access to computers and the Internet.
Taylor and Visciano said they rely on day passes to go Secaucus Public Library to use books and computers. Both said their passes have been revoked at times, so they could not continue with their efforts toward researching options for a purposeful release.
Currently, Visciano has two paintings hanging in the Library’s Resident Art show.
“There is a whole list of improvements, for quality of life and a rehabilitation service. We were supposed to get a fully revised activities schedule, computer skills training unit, and updated policies from therapeutic services staff in April, but they only put a few books in the hospital library,” Taylor said.
Hudson County Executive Director of Policy and Communications Jim Kennelly said he could not answer any questions or allegations since the matter is currently in litigation.
Mental Health crisis in New Jersey
Conservative estimates say there are 348,997 adults, 5.4 percent with serious mental illness, in New Jersey, according to SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services in Washington, D.C.
At the end of 2000, there were 3,154 people in state and county psychiatric hospitals.
On March 31, 2005, Acting Governor Richard J. Codey issued a Task Force on Mental Health Final Report, a project that began in November 2004. Codey said the “report represents movement of New Jersey’s mental health system away from a status quo characterized by stigma and isolation, towards a Treatment, Wellness and Recovery model.”
For many patients at Meadowview, this bold move has had little effect on their treatment.
Even though Meadowview’s policy and procedural manual states the facility “supports the patient’s right to participate actively in health care decision making,” Taylor and Visciano said this has not the case when dealing with hospital administration.