Mississippi State Hospital Case Study Summary

At the beginning of the research effort, the researcher developed the question, “Does the lack of funding for the Mississippi State Hospital affects its services? If so, how?” According to the administrative staff’s answers to the interview questions and the researcher’s interpretation of the primary data, yes, the lack of funding for the MSH did affect its services. As stated earlier, the researcher hypothesized, that resource insufficiency would cause programs, as well as jobs to be eliminated. The researcher also assumed that downsizing the program by cutting the number of beds in operation would cause the hospital to admit fewer patients, causing patients to have to wait longer to receive the proper care that they needed. Consequently, full-time staff would be in jeopardy of becoming part-time employees or having no job at all. Primary data has revealed that MSH was able to absorb some budget cuts over the years, but the cuts resulted in the downsizing of programs, fewer employees, and a reduction in service offered through the state. However, the recent budget cut for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017, was detrimental to the programs. As a result, resource insufficiency has caused two programs to close down.
The findings confirmed that MSH did experience budget cuts within the last five years. The researcher viewed the budget data and calculated the amount of the total reductions. Interestingly, after evaluating the impact of the budget cuts the data revealed that: FY 2013 the budget was cut by $2,772,137; FY 2014- $797,311(State of Mississippi, 2016); FY 2016- $583,811; and the recent largest cut, FY 2017- $3,324,349 (Mississippi State, 2016). Secondary sources also reinforced that MSH’s services were tremendously affected by the cuts, two programs were closed on June 30, 2016. Also, 80 jobs were eliminated as a result of resource insufficiency (Gates,