KANEOHE, Hawaii -- The state mental hospital, which has been plagued with overcrowding, opened its doors to state senators and reporters for a tour on Tuesday.

The Kaneohe hospital is licensed to hold 196 patients, on Tuesday there were 201 patients there.

The great majority of the patients at the hospital are committed there by the courts, so the hospital has to take them even though it does not have room. Thirty-one patients were sent there in the last month.

The facility treats the state's most severely mentally ill patients.

"So they're coming to us, usually self-medicating on the street with illicit drugs. So, by the time they come here, they can be really crazy and very dangerous. We've had a lot of assaults here," nurse manager Robert Burns said.

The hospital has good programs, like a garden, where patients grow flowers, plants and vegetables, staff members said.

However, it is plagued by under funding, under staffing and crowded conditions that workers said are sometimes dangerous.

"When you put a whole bunch of patients in one classroom that can only accommodate between eight to 10, and you're putting 15 to 20 in there, and you have severely mentally ill patients, some that are cycling, some that are psychotic, it's not a good idea or not a good combination," Treatment Mall Director Grace Pakele said.

The hospital's treatment mall, where patients attend classes, suffers from daily patient disturbances and has had to close several times this year because there was not enough staff to oversee patients, officials said.

The vans used to transport patients are at least 15 years old and are rusting and falling apart.

Overcrowding takes its toll on therapy classes, hospital officials said.

"Our programming becomes ineffective because we end up just housing patients in classrooms," Pakele said.

The hospital used to separate violent and nonviolent patients. However, because the hospital is so crowded, it stopped that practice about two years ago. That means it is routine for violent patients to be living in the same room now as nonviolent patients.

"Most of the patients who are here are not violent. It's a small minority who have that as an issue either in their previous history or currently," hospital administrator Mark Fridovich said.

"We want to understand exactly how the system is broken and how we can fix it to the extent it's fixable," Sen. Clayton Hee said.

Lawmakers said they want to set aside funds to combat a 10 percent nursing vacancy rate.