BY TIM WILLERT twillert@opubco.com
Years of alcohol abuse have taken a toll on Harold Hardesty, who once absorbed a hammer to the head in an argument over a bottle of whiskey.
Run-ins with the law, usually when drunk and disorderly, landed Hardesty, 58, in the Oklahoma County jail, where he remained for more than a year despite being diagnosed with alcohol-related dementia.
Until Thursday, when a judge signed an order placing him in a nursing home, Hardesty was one of approximately 350 inmates diagnosed with mental health issues, according to Oklahoma County Sheriff John Whetsel.
Unlike Hardesty, most of the mentally impaired inmates are not candidates for nursing home care because they are violent offenders accused of committing major felony crimes.
Most of those crimes, Whetsel said, were committed because offenders “were off their medication” or “were a result of their mental health issues.”
The sheriff attributes the rise in mentally ill inmates to state funding cuts that resulted in a reduction in mental health facilities and services and forced some hospitals to close their psychiatric wards.
“You have seen an increase is jails across the state with mental health inmates that should be in a facility getting mental health care, that should be getting bed space,” Whetsel said.
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