Mentally ill woman found dead after Texas state hospital drops her at bus station

From The AP:

SAN ANTONIO — Raquel Padilla suffered from schizophrenia and mild retardation but was in the care of a state hospital for the seriously mentally ill until workers decided to send her home by dropping her off at a downtown Greyhound station.

The 54-year-old was found dead three days later in a concrete ditch, having never gotten on that bus back to Del Rio.

Padilla was one of nearly 600 patients discharged from the San Antonio State Hospital and dropped off at the bus station since January 2008, the San Antonio Express-News reported Sunday. The hospital's policy has Padilla's family outraged and has drawn the attention of at least one lawmaker.

"She wasn't capable of taking care of herself, especially in the big city. Even for a normal person, it's hard to catch the bus. For her, it was out of the question," said the woman's brother, Juan Padilla.

Her ability to function was dependent on her medications, and anyone who talked to her could tell she was incapable of navigating a busy bus station, he said. A caseworker did call the family to tell them what bus Raquel Padilla was supposed to be on, but her brother complains that the worker called a brother who also suffers from schizophrenia.

Bob Arizpe, the San Antonio State Hospital superintendent, said employees were following procedure when they dropped Padilla off, and a staff member saw her standing in line for the bus on Dec. 20.

"Any policies or procedures we had in place were followed," Arizpe said. "The only requirement we have is to get them to their mode of transportation."

Hospital workers evaluate every patient before deciding how to send them home from the facility that serves 54 counties, he said. The hospital has discharged about 3,000 patients total since January 2008.

Other state mental hospitals also drop patients at bus stations in comparable numbers, said Emily Palmer, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, which runs the 10 facilities. But no exact figures were available.

She also stressed the state is no longer legally responsible for a patient once he or she is discharged.

"They're not under the supervision of the courts or the state," she said. "They have a right to make choices."

Advocates say the case may prompt more scrutiny of the state's procedures for releasing patients.

"We could have at least made sure we had someone stay with her until she was on the bus," said Robin Peyson, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Texas.

State Sen. Carlos Uresti agreed, saying the state has a duty to vulnerable people with mental illnesses.

"Obviously this is a person who had serious mental illness and needed help," said the San Antonio Democrat who sits on the Health and Human Services Committee. "You can't just put them on a bus to Del Rio or anywhere in the state of Texas without supervision."

If policies allowed Padilla and other patients to be dropped off with no supervision, they should be changed, he said.

"If they won't do it by rule, then we'll have to do it by changing the law," Uresti said.