Nursing homes in Ohio are seeing more adults who are mentally ill

COLUMBUS (AP) — The number of people with mental illnesses living in Ohio nursing homes is the third highest in the nation, according to an Associated Press analysis of numbers obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The state’s nursing home population of mentally ill adults between the ages of 22 and 64 grew to 9,361 last year, an increase of 39 percent from 2002.

Ohio’s growth rate ranks 33rd and reflects a national trend spurred by the closing of state mental institutions, a shortage of hospital psychiatric beds and an increasing number of nursing home beds that are available because today’s healthier elderly are more likely to live in their own homes.

“What has been sold is the idea that nursing homes are a warehouse for old people,” said Jeffrey Webster, an attorney for the Ohio Academy of Nursing Homes, which represents about 230 homes for senior citizens and the mentally ill. “And that is just not true anymore.”

Figures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show nearly 125,000 young and middle-aged adults with serious mental illness lived in U.S. nursing homes last year.

For some senior citizens living in nursing homes alongside younger residents who have schizophrenia, depression or bipolar disorder, the development raises safety concerns.

No government agency keeps count of killings or serious assaults committed by the mentally ill against the elderly in nursing homes. But the 2006 beating death of a 77-year-old man at a South Toledo home is one of a number of violent incidents in recent years.

A Medicaid provision that allows for 30-day convalescent stays at nursing homes after hospital treatment is another reason why so many younger mentally ill adults are being placed in nursing homes, said Peter Van Runkle, executive director of the Ohio Health Care Association.

The rule allows admittance based on a doctor’s signature, letting patients bypass independent, face-to-face admissions reviews.

“They could go back on the street, but in many cases, that is not a safe alternative,” Van Runkle said. “Skilled nursing facilities, for better or worse, end up being the only location for them.”

Other people with serious mental illness are admitted through the regular screening process because they have health care needs that justify them being in a nursing home, he said.