Senator Mary Pilcher-Cook, chair of the Kansas Public Welfare Committee, held session today in Topeka, specifically to look at the issues facing Kansas Mental Health care. With the revocation of medicare supports for Osawatomie State Hospital after being cited for unsafe conditions, many in the legislature — Republicans and Democrats — have deep concerns about the direction state mental health care is taking.

The year that began with a suicide of a mental health patient in a Dodge City jail, and failed to improve for the embattled KDADS agency. The death of Jerry Martinez, a Haviland, Kansas man at the hands of Brandon Brown, a patient who was released early from Osawatomie drew concerns over the nature of overcrowding and staffing concerns.

The scales permanently tipped in October, however, when a worker in the Osawatomie facility was raped in the facility. Today, Senator Jim Denning, R-Overland Park, noted that the loss of federal funding in light of the event will cost the state an estimated $1M per month in unbudgetted expenses while the facility is being re-evaluated.

Senator Denning pressed outgoing agency head Kari Bruffett over whether or not the facility would continue to operate, demanding assurances that those who need mental health care would still have somewhere to go.

Representative Jim Ward, D-Wichita had another series of questions he thought deserved attention: is anyone being fired over these structural failures in Kansas Mental Health Care? And that became the question that shifted the nature of the meeting.