Official says changes could have benefitted from more planning

(Tulsa-AP) -- State health officials say the move from institutional care to community-based care in northeastern Oklahoma has certainly been a learning experience.

State law required the move of nearly 12-hundred noncriminal patients from Eastern State Hospital at Vinita into community health centers. The move was intended to modernize mental-health care in the state, but few outpatient services were in place by the January First, 2001 deadline.

The interim director of the state Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services says he's reluctant to criticize others who planned the move. But Dave Statton says, in hindsight, the change could have gone better with improved planning and more time.

The acting C-E-O of Parkside Hospital at Tulsa says that hospital is still adjusting to the increase of patients it's receiving. Bill McDonald says the downsizing of Eastern strained Parkside, in part because of the severity of illness of patients who were sent there.