State Hospital may use private guards

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Following the 12th escape this year from the Hawai'i State Hospital, health officials said they may post private security guards at the troubled psychiatric facility while a complete security review is done.

"It is something we are seriously considering to provide enhanced security," Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. "We are very concerned, and we're trying to implement something as soon as we can."

Michael McDonald, the second of two patients who disappeared from the hospital Sunday afternoon, returned on his own after about 26 hours. Police officers said McDonald, 37, arrived at the facility in Kane'ohe by bus at about 3 p.m., but they could not immediately say how he spent the night.

McDonald had twice been arrested for assaulting a police officer and had escaped from the hospital twice before. His most recent escape before Sunday was in March. Okubo said doctors considered him a flight risk but had granted him a pass to walk unescorted between units on the hospital's open campus.

"You have to help the patients move toward the least restrictive environment they can be treated in," she said.

There were 16 escapes from the hospital last year, and the rate has increased in recent months. Officials have insisted for months that security has improved, but potentially violent patients have escaped on each of the past three weekends.

The second patient who disappeared Sunday, 32-year-old Stephan Roland, left after he was given a pass to go unescorted to a hospital gym at 1 p.m. Pearl City police arrested him that night at his parents' home.

Okubo said patients' privacy rights precluded her from saying whether Roland had been sent to the hospital by the criminal courts. According to the Hawai'i Criminal Justice Data Center, he has been arrested on misdemeanor charges at least four times since 1988: for terroristic threatening, harassment, abuse of a family or household member, and criminal property damage.

Patients at the hospital are classified and housed in accordance with their treatment needs, regardless of whether they are judged to be a danger to themselves or are charged with a crime, Okubo said.

You can reach Johnny Brannon at jbrannon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2431.