Human rights committee finds hospital violated laws by putting a man with mental illness in solitary confinement for 20 years

The Associated Press reports that the Staunton, Va., Western State Hospital's local human rights committee found that the facility violated laws governing the use of seclusion by holding a mentally ill patient in solitary confinement for 20 years.

But the committee said that the hospital did not violate laws concerning abuse and neglect.

Although the patient, identified as a Hispanic man in his late 50s, lived in solitary confinement in the hospital, he was allowed to go on outings with family members into the community.

One of the patient's attorneys, Nathan J.D. Veldhuis, said the family believes the hospital used solitary confinement "simply for administrative convenience."

"One of the greatest ironies in this case is that fact that he is somehow not dangerous enough to be released into the community unsupervised, under the watch of his family, but he is so dangerous that he must be locked in a room at all times once he's back in the hospital," Veldhuis said.

Veldhuis said the family would like to place the man, known as C.C., into a community treatment center but fear that his years without socialization could hurt those efforts.

"That fact that he has been in this place for so long is really going to make any type of transition a difficult thing," he said. "To be secluded and isolated from other human beings, in our view, is damaging by itself."

C.C. has been in solitary confinement for long periods of time since 1988 and has lived there permanently since 1993, his lawyer says.