Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis wanted to know why the Department of Children & Families was ''clearly'' violating the law by leaving a man in the county jail for two months after he was ordered into a state hospital.

Circuit Judge Larry Schwartz wanted to know whether the DCF had any sort of placement plan for another man who was headed into short-term crisis care but who needed long-term treatment.

And Circuit Judge Diane Ward wanted to know why the DCF wouldn't just place a man who needed mental health treatment -- and had waited for months in jail -- in a private hospital.

Representatives of three hospitals -- Cedars, Mount Sinai and Southern Winds -- were in court Tuesday to offer solutions to the mounting mental health crisis in the county's jails.

More than 35 Miami-Dade inmates who have been ruled incompetent and ordered into state care are waiting for beds, confined in county jails without the treatment doctors say they need. Another 39 inmates are waiting in Broward County jails.

EMERGENCY PETITIONS

The Miami-Dade public defender's office is forcing the issue, filing emergency petitions on behalf of several clients who are acutely ill. Their conditions are being exacerbated by overcrowding in the jail's mental health wing, where three or more inmates are sharing cells made for just one, doctors say.

DCF officials say they simply don't have enough beds at state facilities to treat all the inmates that need help and they have refused to move critical cases up on the waiting list, arguing that it would not be fair to others who are waiting.

In response, the public defender's office recruited the hospitals.

The three have a total of 54 beds available in ''locked-down'' rooms where they can treat mentally ill patients who are under arrest.

DCF officials said they would look into the offer from the private hospitals but insisted that money is the problem.

''We haven't heard anything from any of these hospitals and there's been no formal offer on the table, but we would certainly be interested in talking with them about the beds that they have available,'' DCF spokesman Al Zimmerman said. ``To find the money to pay for beds, whether they're their beds or our beds, is certainly still an issue.''

ON WAITING LIST

Statewide, the DCF had 312 mentally ill people who have been court-ordered into state care on a waiting list last week. More than 250 of them had been on the list longer than the law allows -- 15 days.

The three hospitals said they could take inmates immediately and care for them until they are well enough to stand trial.

''It's clear that now they're in the worst possible setting,'' said Tony Santa, vice president for psychiatric services at Cedars Medical Center.

''We're prepared to work with DCF on the costs,'' said Thomas Mahle, director of behavioral medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. ``We are partners in the community.''

Santa said at the beginning of Tuesday's hearings that he expected a deal could be worked out, at least in dire cases. One man who is waiting for a DCF bed gouged his own eyes out in the jail's mental health wing.

But Santa left the courthouse without any agreement. Only one of four inmates involved in Tuesday's hearings was expected to get out of jail within the next 24 hours -- and he was headed into temporary crisis care.

The judges ordered the DCF to take two other inmates immediately or face contempt charges. The fourth inmate, a woman who has been refusing food since July, will have a hearing today.

Copyright © 2005,
Law Offices of the Public Defender
for the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida
1320 NW 14th St., Miami, FL 33125
Phone: (305) 545-1600

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