June 18, 2019-LAWSUIT OVER GREYSTONE SAFETY, TREATMENT RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT REFORMS

Current and former patients, supported by staff, allege hospital administrators and state health officials have allowed dangerous conditions to continue at psychiatric hospital

State officials have just over a week to file a legal response to court claims that patients at New Jersey’s Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital are at risk of imminent death or injury; and the officials have roughly a month before they must appear on the matter before a federal judge in Newark.

The plaintiffs in the case are 11 current and former patients at Greystone. According to them and to staff affidavits, Greystone administrators and their bosses at the State Department of Health, in Trenton, have failed to ensure there are enough psychiatrists at the hospital; they allege that this has led patients to decompensate — to suffer more from their mental illnesses than they otherwise would — and become angry and violent. One doctor called it “more of a zoo than a hospital” and said patients are treated “like animals.”  Read more