Report says foster children get inadequate health care

(12/14/06 - AUSTIN, TX) - Texas' foster care system is failing in the medical care it provides to children in its custody, Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn said in a report Thursday.

Strayhorn, who lost her bid for governor this year and is leaving office in January, has put out a report before on the foster care system. This one focuses on medical care, psychotropic drugs and other psychiatric treatment for foster children.

"The picture is bleak, and rooted in profound human suffering," the report states.

It makes 48 recommendations to the Medicaid Fraud and Public Assistance Task Force.

It suggests a state investigation at the Health and Human Services Commission into potential fraud and abuse, hiring a physician at the Department of Family and Protective Services as full-time medical director for foster children and requiring prior approval for prescriptions to address the dispensing of non-FDA approved psychotropic medications.

The 227-page report also recommends seeking lower-cost and less restrictive alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization and developing rules for psychiatric hospitalization.

"Given the distressing findings contained in this report, I hope the state will not delay in adopting my recommendations, which have been crafted to help mend this broken system," Strayhorn said.

Strayhorn issued a report on foster care in 2004 pointing out what she said were problems in the system. She announced the following year that she would challenge Republican Gov. Rick Perry for the state's top office, and she spoke of foster care problems during her campaign.

The former director and a counselor at a camp for troubled boys near Austin, which was closed in 2004, have since sued Strayhorn claiming she targeted the facility for political gain.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=state&id=4852679