Arizona pushing private expansion of state mental hospital

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The state health department is asking the Arizona Legislature to pass a law allowing it to lease parts of the state mental hospital and its 93-acre grounds to private providers.

Department of Health Services Director Cara Christ told the House health committee at a hearing last week that her department wants to build a Center for Psychiatric Excellence on the grounds.

The hospital and grounds about a mile north of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport is held in a charitable trust for the benefit of mental health patients in the state. The law change would allow Christ to sign short- and long-term leases and development agreements with private providers.

The hospital itself will not be privatized and its staff will remain state employees, said Colby Bower, an assistant director at the department.

The hospital currently has 311 patients divided between three units — one for sex offenders, one for patients who have been convicted of serious crimes and determined to be insane, and one for people ordered by the courts to be hospitalized because of mental illness.

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Corrie O'Connor