greystone park psychiatric hospital

Violent Greystone patients a top fear

By David Voreacos

April 18, 1996 - The Record

 

MORRIS PLAINS -- Fears about psychiatric patients with AIDS or a history of violence dominated the final state Senate hearing Wednesday about problem-plagued Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.

Witnesses voiced fears about the safety of neighbors near the
630-bed Parsippany-Troy Hills hospital, where many patients have walked off the sprawling grounds. Most alarming, they said, are seven sexual offenders confined under Megan's Law and 77 found not guilty of crimes
by reason of insanity.

"I'm not intending to alarm people who live near Greystone," Sen. Gordon A. MacInnes, D-Morris, testified about the Megan's Law patients. "I'm suggesting that the record of rehabilitation of people in this area is a disturbing one."

Under Megan's Law, prosecutors can recommend the civil commitment of sexual offenders to psychiatric hospitals after they complete their prison terms. Like witnesses at two earlier hearings, MacInnes said Wednesday that Greystone should tighten its security for such patients.

Senate hearings were called after a storm of publicity about
Greystone was prompted by sexual assaults by workers on patients, a patient suicide while workers slept, questions about doctor qualifications, and the escape of a violent patient for several weeks.

State Sen. Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, who aggressively questioned witnesses throughout the hearings, Wednesday voiced concerns about Megan's Law patients at a hearing held here.

"We know Greystone is not a secure campus, that they could very easily walk into the community and once again commit that crime," Codey said. "It would behoove us to have these people in a secure area. . . . All you need is one incident up there, and you'd see chaos like you've never seen before."

The panel's chairman, Sen. Robert J. Martin, R-Morris, suggested that state mental health officials consider placing all Megan's Law offenders in one psychiatric hospital, rather than several throughout New Jersey.

"Greystone has a lot of land, and I don't know that Greystone is the appropriate place," Martin said. "It is frightening if you are talking about compulsive, repetitive sex offenders."

Sex was a major topic of testimony by retired Greystone
psychologist Louise Riscalla. She believes that patients should be segregated by gender because of her concerns about sexually transmitted diseases among a patient population that is free to have consensual sex.

Riscalla criticized the state's practice of not testing all patients for HIV, and for a policy that constrains workers from knowing who has the virus. "What bothers me is that you don't know who has it and who doesn't have it," she said. "A lot of patients have poor judgment and are very free with their sexuality. This is a pretty serious problem."

Greystone's acting chief executive officer, Joseph Jupin, said
employees act as if all patients are HIV-positive. He defended the hospital's policy to avoid AIDS testing because of the time lag between when someone contracts the virus and when it can be detected.

"The problem is that testing doesn't necessarily reveal the
infectious state of an individual," Jupin said. He said he is unaware of any cases of HIV transmission between patients.

Jupin was appointed to lead a four-member management team after publicity and the hearings prompted a wave of managerial bloodletting, leading to the departure of Chief Executive Officer George Waters, the deputy CEO, the chief of nursing, and the medical director.

Martin, Codey, and Sen. C. Louis Bassano, R-Union, make up the Senate panel.

 

Disclaimer: This article is featured on designedbreakdown solely for entertainment and educational purposes. Neither the publication nor this website are affiliated with one another in any way. Any photos featured within the article are chosen from galleries of photos on designedbreakdown.com unless noted otherwise.