Resignations are a double blow to the mental health system in the state of Virginia Government and politics

Government officials have confirmed that Brandi France will step down as director of the Eastern State Hospital near Williamsburg on June 1, and that Christine Shane served as deputy director of forensic services in the Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services on Wednesday.

The state has not given an explanation for the departures, but the timing is not good for the oldest public mental hospital in Virginia, which also has the highest percentage of forensic patients of any institution in the state’s behavioral health system.

“We had a serious exodus of people in the previous administration [of then-Gov. Ralph Northam]”Said Sen. Monty Mason, D-Williamsburg, who is a member of the Virginia Behavioral Health Commission. “To keep that going, you have a lot of people with a lot of history associated with what we’re doing who are no longer there.”

The resignations came just over a month after two patients, both criminals, fled the eastern state. Law enforcement agencies arrested two fugitives - one in Chesapeake on Easter Sunday, the day after the escape, and the other in Norfolk four days later. Authorities said he had a firearm.

Virginia’s behavioral health facilities are struggling with overcrowding and staff shortages, as well as reservations about patient evaluation to determine if they are mentally fit to be tried on criminal charges or, if not, to regain their competence as best they can.

Many of these patients are there under misdemeanor charges for minor misdemeanors, but stay in the hospital until their fitness is assessed and, if necessary, returned.

“There must be a better way than sending people with misdemeanors to be brought back so they can be tried,” said Mason, who hopes the Senate will win budget talks that could produce this week’s General Assembly agreement. could consider at a special session on June 1.

The Senate budget includes money for an amendment sponsored to increase the fee for competency assessments from $ 750 to $ 1,200 to encourage more qualified professionals to perform them.

French has been the CEO and CEO of Eastern State for more than two years, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed 26 patients and two employees in state institutions, but none in the hospital in James City County. She previously worked as chief operating officer at Piedmont Geriatric Hospital, a state institution in the district of Nottowai for elderly patients with behavioral health problems.

She will be temporarily replaced by William “Dewey” Jennings, who is currently the assistant director of administration and has more than 25 years of experience in the state government.

Shane has worked in this business for almost five years, with previous experience in the mental health and development services in the area of ​​Henrico and Willie St. Joseph in Henrico County.

Clinical psychologist Angela Torres will become the temporary deputy director for forensic services. Currently, Torres works as a forensic oversight manager, developing state and regional mental health and criminal justice policies.

Previously, she worked as the main forensic coordinator at the Central State Hospital near St. Petersburg, which manages the only maximally safe forensic unit in the state system.

Eastern State and Central State have the highest percentage of forensic patients in the state system with 85% and 81%, respectively, followed by the Southern Virginia Institute of Mental Health in Danville with 76% and Western State Hospital in Staunton with 60%.

Mason claims that state hospitals - including the restored eastern state - “are not designed for this type of patient.”

However, he said, most patients in hospitals “are just such patients”.