Medication Nation

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http://www.propublica.org/feature/stockholder-suit-targets-psychiatric-solutions-troubled-mental-health-chain
by Robin Fields, ProPublica - September 22, 2009 5:01 pm EDT

Psychiatric Solutions Inc. [1], the nation’s leading provider of inpatient mental health care, is being sued by stockholders who claim the company issued “false and misleading statements” about troubles at one of its hospitals.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Tennessee, alleges that PSI violated securities laws by downplaying problems at Riveredge Hospital near Chicago and waiting too long to tell shareholders how they had affected the company’s bottom line.

Investigations last year by the Chicago Tribune [2] and ProPublica [3] detailed violence, sexual abuse and neglect at PSI facilities from coast to coast, including Riveredge. In several instances, PSI facilities [4] were cited for not reporting patient deaths and injuries as required, federal and state records showed.

In response to the reports, the Justice Department opened an investigation and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services froze admissions of foster children to Riveredge.

The lawsuit alleges that PSI’s statements – particularly those indicating the admissions hold would end soon and that other regulatory deficiencies had been fixed – inflated the company’s stock price, helping company leaders reap millions from insider sales.

In early 2009, PSI announced that its 2008 results had fallen short of estimates. Its share price dropped about 35 percent on the news.

Through a spokesman, PSI called the lawsuit “wholly without merit.”

“We have at all times operated, and will continue to operate in full compliance with the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission,” John Van Mol said in a written statement.

http://www.propublica.org/feature/nevada-to-shut-troubled-psych-hospital-610 * Link’s available from original article.

Nevada to Shut Troubled Psych Hospital
by Christina Jewett , ProPublica - June 10, 2009 12:11 pm EDT

The Reno Gazette-Journal reported yesterday that authorities in Nevada plan to shut down a local psychiatric hospital * after a patient overdosed on pills she brought into the facility.

West Hills Hospital is part of a Tennessee-based chain, Psychiatric Solutions, that we’ve covered quite a bit. In November, we co-published an article * with the Los Angeles Times documenting the chain’s rapid growth * and star status on Wall Street, even as patient care lagged * behind similar hospitals.

We co-published two articles with the Chicago Tribune in February about a troubled Psychiatric Solutions hospital in the Chicago area that, even while under federal investigation, continued to experience patient care problems * with illicit sexual encounters between young and vulnerable patients.

The other article * documented details of a patient death at Riveredge Hospital that officials said should have been reported by the facility a year sooner.

Since then, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that * city officials decided to stop sending psychiatric patients to another PSI facility, Friends Hospital. Authorities decided to cease referring about 6,500 patients per year after a 21 year-old committed suicide while he should have been monitored via a camera system that, regulators found, was broken;

In Reno, health officials notified West Hills Hospital that it plans to close the 95-bed facility within 30 days and immediately pull its operating license. A PSI spokesman responded, saying the facility plans to appeal the decision.

“The community needs the mental health services we provide, and we are cooperating fully with state officials to provide all the information that is needed so that our ability to receive patients will be restored,” corporate spokesman John Van Mol told the Post-Gazette.

The news report documents other problems there. In December, two young female patients attempted suicide * by putting nooses around their necks while they were not being adequately monitored. A state report says one girl was found unconscious and red-faced after the attempt. Earlier this year, teenage patients locked staff members out of a unit. A month later, teenage patient hit another teen.

During our investigation of the chain, we ran across an older incident in which the hospital was cited for failing to “provide services for the care of its patients.” A state report dated Oct. 4, 2006 (PDF *), documents a patient who was on suicide watch barricading himself in a room. Then the man ran down a hall, locked doors behind him and escaped.

Outside, a police officer responding to the incident shot and killed the man.

State regulators cited the hospital for insufficient staffing after they learned that a nurse who had difficulty walking was the only staff member assigned to perform routine checks on 19 patients. We posted the rest of the state investigation reports (PDF *) that we received from the state of Nevada late in 2008. Take a look. *

http://www.propublica.org/feature/as-executive-promises-transparency-state-probes-a-death

by Christina Jewett, ProPublica, and Sam Roe, Chicago Tribune - February 26, 2009 8:49 am EDT

This story was co-published with the Chicago Tribune.

Artiejah Williams, 7, holds an old family photo of her dead mother Tameka WIlliams with Tameka’s mother Carlina (Artiejah’s grandmother) on Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009. Tameka Williams died in 2007 while under care after spending more than a week at Riveredge Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Forest Park. Carlina now cares for the children. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune)

Tameka Williams, 27, lay on a gurney in the grips of schizophrenia, gently thumping her fist against her forehead as she waited to be admitted to Riveredge Hospital.

In just over a week, Williams and her 8-week-old fetus would be dead. Riveredge Hospital did not report the Aug. 10, 2007 death to state regulators, noting that Williams died in an emergency room an hour after she collapsed at the psychiatric hospital.

State regulators, however, say Riveredge was bound by state law to report the death. The Illinois Department of Public Health only learned of Williams a year later after an employee lodged an anonymous complaint.

The state concedes that it erred when it issued no citation for the hospital’s silence.

Tameka Williams’ death raises questions not only about state oversight, but also about care at the embattled hospital, which in three days gave Williams 10 doses of a drug that is so risky that the FDA has issued five “black box” warnings about its effects.

Just one day before regulators converged on the hospital to look into the complaint, the chief executive of the corporation that owns Riveredge Hospital told a group of investment analysts that the company is transparent with its overseers.

“As a matter of fact at all [of our] facilities we thoroughly report incidents to relevant agencies as soon as possible,” Joey Jacobs, chief executive of Tennessee-based Psychiatric Solutions, said on Aug. 4, 2008.

The hospital released a statement in response to questions about the death, noting that Riveredge and Loyola University Medical Center, where Williams died, “did everything they could to save her.”

“Sadly,” the statement says, “her death was unavoidable.”

Williams’ mother, Carlina, questions that claim.

“They weren’t even looking after her,” Carlina Williams said in her West Side apartment. “What can I do?”

State public health investigators found several lapses in Williams’ care [2] (PDF), some involving an antipsychotic drug that has not been evaluated for pregnant patients.

While hospital records state that a physician described to her the benefits of clozapine, the antipsychotic drug she was given, Williams’ signature is not on the patient consent form.

The drug’s warning literature states that patients taking it are 27.5 times more likely than the rest of the population to die as a result of a blood clot lodging in the heart.

Despite the risks, the health department report said staff did not document checks of Tameka’s vital signs each day and her unborn child’s heartbeat each shift.

Just before 2 a.m. on the eighth day of Tameka’s stay at the hospital, she called out to a staff member, a Cook County medical examiner’s report says.

Tameka said she felt weak but needed to go to the bathroom, and the worker helped her sit up in bed, the report says. The staffer looked on, though, as Tameka held on to a wall, grew visibly weak in the legs and fell to the floor, the report says.

Hospital regulators found that the hospital failed to ensure Tameka’s safety in the moments before staffers called a “code blue.”

Williams’ autopsy states that she died after a blood clot in her right leg broke loose and lodged in her heart. Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Nancy Jones said Williams’ pregnancy and obesity were contributing factors to her death.

Jones said the office typically checks for drugs that people tend to abuse. She said the examiner did not screen Williams’ blood to determine whether clozapine was a factor in her death.

http://www.propublica.org/article/illinois-report-blasts-care-as-psychiatric-hospitals-0304

by Christina Jewett , ProPublica - April 3, 2009 6:52 pm EDT

Illinois’ child welfare agency released an 84-page report [1] Friday detailing violence and abuse at one of Illinois’ largest psychiatric hospitals, as well as troubles throughout the 95-hospital chain owned by Nashville-based Psychiatric Solutions.

The review comes after ProPublica and the Chicago Tribune reported in February about juvenile sexual assaults [2] and an unreported death [3] at Riveredge Hospital. Last July, a Tribune investigation [4] disclosed unreported violence among juvenile patients and spurred the child welfare agency to stop sending youths in state care to the facility.

“This facility remains on intake hold,” said Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, of Riveredge Hospital. “The care provided by Riveredge was completely unacceptable, and we remain outraged at the pain and violence suffered by innocent children in this facility’s care.”

The state’s announcement came with the release of the critical report by researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago. The report chronicles abuses at Riveredge and many of the hospitals owned by Psychatric Solutions Inc. of Nashville, Tenn. Officials from the company, which operates in 30 states, could not immediately be reached for comment.

ProPublica and the Los Angeles Times reported in November [5] about lapses in patient care at the company’s hospitals.

Riveredge owner Psychiatric Solutions Inc. [6] issued a written statement to the Tribune saying that “from a historical perspective, we are disappointed with any incidents that occurred at the facility and deeply regret and apologize for any harm to one of our patients. However, since September 2008, we have not had any significant incidents at the facility and have provided quality care to our patients in a safe, therapeutic environment. Based on the care being provided today, we disagree with the report’s focus, conclusions, and final recommendations.”

The report says DCFS “can have no reliable basis at this time” to send youth in state custody to the hospital.

The Illinois hospital review faulted Psychiatric Solutions executives for “blaming downward or blaming outward when things go wrong,” saying executives too easily rationalized problems by pointing to staff lapses or patients who fail to follow the rules.

“While this sort of organizational firewall provides a certain level of deniability for the hospital and corporate leadership, (the state) has a right to expect more with regard to systemic accountability from a major healthcare provider to whom it entrusts the treatment and safety of its wards,” said the report, written by Ronald Davidson, director of the UIC Mental Health Policy Program.

The report details “longstanding and recurring problems” throughout the hospital chain, including “unreliable incident reporting,” multiple patient deaths and the sexual assault of one 5-year-old patient. Corporate officials did not know about patient care problems “until the issues were dragged into the sunlight by the state investigators or – in some instances – the news media,” the report said.

“As the leadership of the largest psychiatric hospital corporation in the United States, however, they should have known,” the report says.

The researchers delved far into Riveredge Hospital records, examining the case of a 12-year-old boy who alleged in 2006 that he was raped three times by a 15-year-old boy. Riveredge’s internal documents described the boy as “easily agitated” with a “tendency to fight with others.” The hospital’s report to a regulatory body had concluded that the 12-year-old’s claim of being a rape victim “appears inconsistent with the passive behaviors he describes for these incidents.”

The researchers challenged that characterization. “Such an offensive innuendo, if made by a defense attorney cross-examining a rape victim, would likely be slapped down hard and fast by the judge as grossly improper,” the report says. “…Implying that the victim might not be entirely truthful, it nevertheless raises some very troubling questions about the integrity of system-related accountability within this organization.”

Child welfare officials also said Friday that they will seek to increase the number of psychiatric hospital monitors within the department and will work with other state and federal agencies to explore policy changes.

Read the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services report. [1]

Updated April 4, 10:25 a.m.: This story has been updated to include a response by Psychiatric Solutions Inc. to the Chicago Tribune.

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1897566.html

Mental health center open again to new patients

Published: Thursday, May. 28, 2009 - 12:00 am | Page 2B

The Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center has reopened its doors to new patients, officials announced Wednesday.

Last Friday, the facility closed its crisis unit – the main point of entry for the 100-bed inpatient psychiatric hospital – in response to overcrowding that threatened to bring state sanctions.

Increased caseloads combined with the county’s budget woes led to the situation. Mental health advocates say the county’s cuts to outpatient services put too much of a burden on the inpatient facility. At midyear the center ran out of money to outsource patients to other facilities and for the past four to six weeks had seen its census regularly rise above 100.

Dorian Kittrell, the center’s executive director, said mental health officials will monitor the facility’s numbers closely and will temporarily close again if and when the center reaches capacity.

– Robert Lewis

Mr. President and Staff,

I would like to know if you plan to address the epidemic of problems within our nations mental health and pharmaceutical industries?

Within the last 50 years psychiatric pharmaceutical drugs have worked their way into every crevice of our social system, they are daily prescribed to children, adolescents, adults and seniors and in many cases cause long term and irrevocable harm. This trend in treating physical and mental illness through the exclusive use of pharmaceuticals has cost Medicare, State government health care and the private sector including individuals trillions of dollars.

When will someone finally speak out on this madness?

I run a grass roots advocacy website to inform the public about the dangers of psychiatric drugs and the abuses of modern psychiatric treatments.

It is no secret that the history of psychiatry has been host to some of our nations more horrific human rights violations and injustice. But do you know that it is still used by law enforcement and the medical community in this way?

Many individuals in my town, Sacramento, California, wander the streets homeless and mentally ill because the care they might receive for their illness is tantamount to abuse more so than “care".

In one county near our city mentally ill individuals who also suffer physical illness, who receive disability and have homes receive no intervention when they are on the edge of the abyss of insanity, because the infrastructure set up for treatment is a archaic beast of wards, cold metal beds and dangerous over crowding. Sexual assaults, physical abuse and over drugging to the point of death are common.

We don’t live in a communist dictatorship, this is not a third world country. When will our healthcare industry reflect that status of civilization?

www.medication-nation.com

http://www.propublica.org/feature/psychiatric-hospital-pledged-change-but-some-problems-persist

by Christina Jewett, ProPublica - February 26, 2009 8:50 am EST

This story was co-published [1] with the Chicago Tribune.

Shortly after the Justice Department began investigating Illinois’ largest psychiatric hospital last summer, the company’s chief executive assured investors that the problems were behind them. Riveredge Hospital had a new management team, said Joey Jacobs, CEO of Psychiatric Solutions Inc., and would “continue to get better.”

Three weeks later, however, a hospital staffer noticed two teenage boys in bed engaged in what one of them later described as sexual assault. Instead of separating the boys, the worker attended to four other patients before alerting a supervisor, documents show [2] (PDF).

The boys, 14 and 16, were among a handful of children admitted to Riveredge after a Tribune report [3] last July revealed that patients had been assaulted and left vulnerable to known sexual predators.

In the months since, details have emerged suggesting that problems at Riveredge continued after the new facility manager took over in June.

Just a day before Jacobs spoke to investors on Aug. 4, a patient with a history of acting out sexually was observed having sex with a mentally retarded female patient in an open area of the hospital, records show.

Responding to inquiries about these incidents, Riveredge Hospital said in a statement that it took its responsibility “to provide a therapeutic and safe environment” to its patients “very seriously.”

But it also said: “While every precaution is taken to ensure patient safety and quality of care, incidents have occurred despite our vigilant efforts. We recognize that even one incident is too many, so we have responded immediately and aggressively to make sure our patients’ needs are being met and that we are doing everything possible to prevent further occurrences.”

Public officials paid Riveredge $32.4 million in 2007 to treat patients in the 210-bed facility. But that funding fell off in the seven months since the Department of Children and Family Services stopped sending state wards to the hospital last summer – following inquiries from the Tribune.

After the newspaper published its investigation, the Justice Department subpoenaed records from the facility’s owner and from DCFS officials.

In turn, Psychiatric Solutions hired former Chicago-based federal prosecutor Scott Lassar, now a partner with the firm Sidley Austin. Lassar said the company is fully cooperating with the Justice Department.

He said the hospital has also responded to subpoenas from the Illinois State Police, which investigates Medicaid fraud, and has permitted employees to speak with investigators.

“I haven’t seen any evidence that they’ve done anything wrong whatsoever,” Lassar said. “Zero.”

The DCFS admissions hold remains in place while a team of University of Illinois at Chicago psychiatry researchers completes a thorough evaluation of the hospital’s past services to agency wards, interviewing youth and reviewing patient charts, according to DCFS spokesman Kendall Marlowe.

Once the review is complete, Marlowe said the agency will review it and determine whether, or under what conditions, children in state custody will return to the hospital.

“Our decision will be based on the safety, well-being and quality of care of our children,” he said.

The review comes against a backdrop of continuing concern by state and federal officials about Tennessee-based Psychiatric Solutions, the nation’s largest operator of free-standing psychiatric facilities.

In both 2007 and 2008, California health officials levied $25,000 in fines against one of the chain’s hospitals. Authorities have threatened to pull the licenses of company PSI facilities in Virginia, Florida and Texas. Officials from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services took the rare step of ousting a company hospital in Houston from the government’s reimbursement program in 2007.

At the company’s Riveredge facility in west suburban Forest Park, state health department inspectors found several deficiencies in the hospital’s care of a pregnant 27-year-old patient. She died in August 2007, an hour after she was rushed out of Riveredge. Regulators determined that the hospital failed to document vital-sign checks for the woman and her fetus even while she was taking a risky antipsychotic drug.

During inspections last fall, the Illinois Department of Public Health also scrutinized 12 patients’ medical records, noting that many of their assessments were not individualized and their treatment plans were vague.

Both of the sexual contact cases, which did not involve DCFS wards, prompted health department citations against Riveredge for failing to adequately monitor patients.

In the case involving the 16- and 14-year old boys, the older child, an autistic patient, alleged his 14-year-old roommate had assaulted him. The 16-year old told Forest Park police his roommate initiated the attack by choking him and threatening to kill him.

The state report on the incident says a staffer reported seeing the boys engaged in sexual conduct at 7:15 a.m., but went about her duties for 15 minutes before notifying a nurse.

Inspectors found conflicting accounts of the incident. The facility’s incident report says the boys were “immediately” separated. But the detail about the staffer going about her business before alerting a supervisor was found in that employee’s own written statement, regulators wrote.

Health authorities noted another shortcoming: The staffer who was in charge of observing the boys every 10 minutes – per hospital policy – wrote that they were each “in bed, asleep” from 7:10 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

In the same report, regulators also noted that on Aug. 3, 2008, the hospital failed to monitor a 34-year-old mentally retarded patient, who, it was noted, was unable to “provide for personal safety/protection.”

That patient was observed having sex in an open day room with a 54-year-old patient who was on “assault precautions” and had exhibited sexually inappropriate behavior on his way to the hospital.

In response to regulators’ findings, the facility said last fall that it fired three mental health workers and one nurse who didn’t comply with its patient-checking policy. It also initiated additional staff training and installed bar-code scanners outside of patient rooms to ensure that staffers make the prescribed 10-minute patient checks.

On Oct. 29, the hospital’s chief executive sent a memo to staffers, directing them to tell a professional if they noticed signs of sexual volatility. The memo emphasized the importance of checking on those in their care.

“The purpose of rounds is to ensure that patients are safe at all times!” read the memo, which was provided to the Tribune by a hospital worker. “Before initiating rounds, know who your patients are!”

A reader submitted this information today:

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090212/BUSINESS01/902120358/1003/BUSINESS

Psychiatric Solutions faces abuse suit
By Getahn Ward
THE TENNESSEAN
February 12, 2009

Psychiatric Solutions Inc. has been hit with a lawsuit that accuses the company of negligence in its oversight of employees at a residential psychiatric facility in Florida.

Abuse including beatings by employees at the Manatee Palms Youth Services in Bradenton caused plaintiff Nicholas E. Rossi to suffer severe emotional distress and bodily harm, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Manatee County Circuit Court. Rossi was a resident at the facility from September 2004 to May 2005.

Psychiatric Solutions of Franklin, which operates psychiatric hospitals, inherited the facility when it purchased Ramsey Youth Services of Coral Gables, Fla., in 2003.

Manatee Palms failed to run proper background checks on several employees with criminal histories that battered Rossi, who at the time was a minor, the suit claims. It also kept them on staff and failed to stop and report the abuse and batteries, it claims. Brent Turner, a spokesman with Psychiatric Solutions, declined to comment.

The suit comes after the Los Angeles Times published a report in November from independent, nonprofit investigative newsroom ProPublica describing dozens of instances of abuse and neglect at company facilities from coast to coast.

Getahn Ward covers the business of health care. He can be reached 726-5968 or at gward@tennessean.com.

By Hudson Sangree
hsangree@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

The parents of Ricardo Abrahams, a man they say was mentally disturbed, sued the city of Woodland and four of its police officers Wednesday, claiming police killed Abrahams during a struggle.

Rosemary and Cecil Abrahams of Davis claim officers killed their son by beating him with batons, shooting him with Tasers and tackling him without cause.

Police were called to check on Abrahams after he walked out of a voluntary treatment facility. The officers said he disobeyed them and acted aggressively.

Abrahams, who was attending law school, was an intern in the Yolo County District Attorney’s office. His parents say he was suffering from stress-induced mental disturbance.

The lawsuit names officers John Perez, Omar Flores, Anthony Cucchi and Amanda Waldeck as defendants. The officers decided to take Abrahams into custody even though he had done nothing illegal, the suit says.

An internal Woodland police investigation and a review of that investigation by the state Attorney General’s office found no evidence of wrongdoing. The Yolo County coroner concluded Abrahams died of asphyxia under restraint.

The lawsuit, which asks for an unspecified amount of damages, also names Taser International as a defendant.

In this article posted to operationawareness.com a mother writes about her ten year old son who was sent to Havenwyck Hospital in Michigan State to undergo involuntary treatment for sexual abuse and sexual deviance. This information is substantiated by the PSI website maintained for the hospital itself: http://www.psysolutions.com/facilities/havenwyck/impulse.html

Havenwyck’s Impulse Disorder Program is a 26-bed licensed and secured residential program specifically designed for children and adolescents ages 11-17, with emotional and/or behavioral sex offending symptoms, which require them to be in a secure 24-hour supervised therapeutic sex offending setting.

Children and adolescents in the Impulse Disorder Program have been unable to function successfully at home, in school and in their social relationships. They are accepted into the program to develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their families, their sex offending problems; and to develop more healthy and adaptive behaviors. The youngsters attend Havenwyck’s state approved on-ground school.

The unique design of the residential program provides the most current “state-of-the-art” sex offender treatment techniques including; cognitive restructuring, relapse prevention, and covert desensitization therapies, as well as other innovative approaches.

Our objectives are to:

• Provide sex offender treatment resulting in freedom from sexual deviant behaviors
• Examine and modify patterns of deviant sexual arousal
• Develop victim empathy and remorse for their actions
• Develop an understanding of sexual offending as a mood-altering behavior
• Establish more positive anger management techniques
• Develop more social relationships skills
• Assist the families in being vehicles for change
• Discharge the individual to the least restrictive environment or home as soon as possible

The program facilitates a multi-disciplinary intensive sex offender treatment program which includes individual, group, psychopharmacology, family and activity therapies; as well as a variety of multi-disciplinary and substance abuse groups.

Eligibility Requirements

• Children & Adolescents 11-17 years of age
• Displaying sexually deviant behaviors
• Sex offending behavior is beyond the scope of outpatient treatment
• Adjudicated or non-adjudicated requiring a secure locked unit

http://www.operationawareness.com/about_1_child.html

FROM VICTIM TO PERPETRATOR TO VICTIM

WHY PREVENTION AND REAL TREATMENT SHOULD BE AMERICA’S FIRST PRIORITY TO STOP THE CYCLE AND END ABUSE.

This is an e-mail we received from a Mother living in Michigan. Only their names have been changed to protect their identities. Their story is a classic example of why the system is failing us all.

I’m writing to you regarding a situation involving my now 14 year old son, Ben. He was sexually abused at a young age and I had voluntarily placed him in treatment at age four because he was emotionally impaired as a result.

He also spent nine years in special education due to this impairment. This went well until his treatment was sabotaged by the CPS. This is important because the CPS built a case against my child over several years following this treatment.

Ben apparently was acting out sexually in the community and it was reported to the CPS.

Rather than notify me, Ben was repeatedly pulled from class and interrogated by the CPS. Since Ben was the one accused of wrongdoing, shouldn’t there have been a parent or attorney present?

In 2003 Ben touched his cousin through her underwear and threatened to kill her if she told anyone. Ben was barely 10 and my niece was 11. We didn’t find out about it until January 2004 and immediately sought counseling for Ben.

The juvenile justice/ CPS worker and the prosecutor told us that in order for the court to pay for the treatment, Ben would have to plead guilty to Second Degree CSC. They assured us that Ben’s record would be expunged when he turned 18 if he successfully completed treatment and stayed out of trouble. They also told us that it wasn’t necessary for Ben to have an attorney - we could have one - but it would only drag it out even longer.

Ben’s fingerprints, mug shot and DNA were taken.

As soon as Ben pled guilty, he was locked up in juvenile detention for four months before being sent to Havenwyck Psychiatric Hospital in Auburn Hills for 17 more months.

Havenwyck is a private hospital owned by Psychiatric Solutions Inc.

Medicaid wouldn’t pay for this treatment so Antrim County DHS, Probate Court and Community mental health picked up the tab. They made me pay child support and billed me weekly.

Ben was threatened by the juvenile justice worker that if he didn’t hurry up and finish treatment he would be sent to juvenile detention. She then felt the need to share with Ben that she used to be employed by Wackenhut and while working there, a group of boys dragged another boy into a room and sodomized him until his rectum fell out and he bled to death.

Treatment at Havenwyck involves torture and experimental behavior modification techniques.

Covert Taping - Ben was made to write a healthy script and a deviant script. These he read aloud into a tape recorder. When he became aroused, he had to break open an ammonia capsule and inhale deeply. Staff members listened to these tapes to make sure that he choked. That meant that he was doing it properly. Ben suffered horrible nosebleeds for months after he came home.

Plethysmographs - This is a test where the older boys were taken out of the facility. A ring with sensors is placed over the boys penis and they are shown sexually graphic material. Ben was too young to do this, but went out of the facility with two other boys and a staff member to act as chaperone.

This was necessary because a staff member named Mr. Ari was accused by a gay black boy of engaging in oral and anal sex with him in the bathroom of the facility where they do the plethysmographs.

This happened before Ben got to Havenwyck, yet Ben met Mr. Ari. That was because he was still working on the unit. He was transferred to another unit and eventually let go, but as far as Ben knows this was never investigated by the state.

Most of the boys in Havenwyck are wards of the state. Since Medicaid won’t pay for this, who is paying who?

Ben successfully completed treatment in January 2004. He was home for nine days when the juvenile justice worker called to inform me that Ben had to register as a sex offender by the next day or he’d be in trouble.

This was the first time we were informed that Ben would have to do this. Otherwise we would have had an attorney and never would have agreed to their deal.

We complied and tried to get on with our lives. There was never any documentation regarding the rules that Ben is supposed to follow.

The day that Florida Governor Jeb Bush deemed ammonia capsules to be torture, Ben was released from his strict probation without a hearing. The court order said nothing about him having to register quarterly for the rest of his life.

We have been trying to pick up the pieces and go on.

However on May 17, 2007 the state police showed up at our home and “apprehended” Ben for failing to register quarterly since he came home more than a year earlier.

The state trooper was confused by all of this and believed me when I told him that that was the first that I’d heard that Ben had to register. I have no documentation from Antrim County regarding the rules Ben is supposed to follow.

According to the paperwork the trooper showed me, Ben’s DNA isn’t on file. Antrim County took a cheek swab, so where is my child’s DNA?

There was also confusion as to why my son was sentenced so harshly.The only thing the trooper could think of was the fact that my niece was under the age of 13. She was 11 and Ben was 10 at the time of the incident.

The trooper then proceeded to take Ben’s palm prints on the trunk of his car in front of everyone. We live by the school and there was much traffic that day. He also went over the radio with Ben’s name, our address and failure to register CSC. Great .Even though Ben is only 14, he seems to have forfeited his right to privacy.

The trooper said he was going to write and fax his report to Antrim County that day because he wanted to clear up the confusion about the matter.

I waited for several weeks for Antrim County to contact me. We only had until July 15 to get him registered. When I didn’t hear from them, I called the trooper. He said that he specifically attached a memo for them to contact me as soon as possible.

He called Antrim County and they told him that prosecutor Mark Fett was going to look into this and would call me. He did, and I tried to ask him questions as to how and why this happened and how we were supposed to comply if we aren’t told what to do. He also told me that Antrim County decided not to press charges.

I asked about appealing my son’s conviction and he informed me that I would have to hire my own attorney. Unfortunately I can’t afford one.

Because I questioned this matter, Mr. Fett got very angry with me and he screamed at me, “I’m telling you now-Register your kid!” He then slammed the phone down in my ear.

I wanted Ben to be charged because we then could have had an attorney look at his case.

From what I have been able to figure out, Ben is subject to the Adam Walsh Act of 2007.

Since he committed his offense in 2003 at age 10, I don’t understand how this can possibly pertain to him. My father is a convicted sex offender, yet he doesn’t have to register because his crime was committed before there was a sex offender registry.

I feel that the CPS was building a case against Ben for years since his past behavior was a deciding factor in the decision to prosecute rather than help the kid.

My main questions are as follows :

1. Havenwyck was the only facility that would even take Ben because he was so young (barely 11) . Why was he sent there, especially since it is experimental? Ben’s therapist made reference to Pavlov’s dogs in open court and stated that the program had been in existence for less than 10 years.

2. Since the California Court of Appeals ruled last year that plethysmographs are “Orwellian” in nature, why are they using them on children who are wards of the state?

3. Why was Ben questioned repeatedly by the CPS without a parent or lawyer present while an elementary school student, then charged with a crime at a later date?

4. Is it legal to use ammonia capsules on children?

5. Why did the judge allow us to proceed without an attorney when there was going to be lifelong repercussions? It’s not fair that my child’s life is ruined because I made a bad decision.

Time is running out for us. We only have three years to file suit in Michigan and its already been more than 2 years. Are there any attorneys willing to take cases if the state is involved?

Ben never recieved the help he needed for being a victim of sexual abuse. Instead he was treated like some kind of monster and had his life ruined by people who should be helping kids.

Special thanks to “W” for allowing us to share her story. Unfortunately, their story is one that gets repeated over and over again in this country. When parents try and do the right thing and get their children help they find out that their’s and their child’s life is forever turned upside down and the child NEVER gets the help he or she needs. So, the cycle continues and many lives needlessly get destroyed in the process.

operationawareness.com 2008

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2008/11/24/psychiatric-solutions-hospitals-under-fire/

By John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
November 24, 2008

Sometimes, mental health treatment means having to go into a modern psychiatric hospital. Unlike psychiatric hospitals of old, modern facilities are meant to help stabilize an individual and provide a safe and protected environment for a person to heal with around-the-clock care.

But modern psychiatric hospitals still have their share of troubles, as illustrated in an in-depth piece today in the Los Angeles Times which examines Psychiatric Solutions Inc (PSI), a chain of psychiatric hospitals across the country. In the article, the problems with the chain are laid out:

Since 2005, the 10 hospitals PSI has owned longest have compiled almost twice as many patient-care deficiencies as 10 similar hospitals owned by its closest competitor, Universal Health Services Inc.

The PSI hospitals were cited in three patient deaths and for placing patients in immediate jeopardy four times, the inspection records show. The UHS hospitals received no equivalent citations.

Among private psychiatric hospitals in California, Sierra Vista had the single highest rate of state and federal deficiencies — about eight times the statewide average.

It has twice been fined $25,000 for endangering patients — accounting for the only such penalties levied against psychiatric hospitals under a 2006 state law establishing the sanctions.

Yikes. Not exactly good things to hear about a facility where you’re literally putting your life into their hands.

What’s the problem? Likely staffing issues related to a chase for ever-increasing profits and unchecked growth (going from 5 facilities to 95 in just 5 short years):

The five PSI hospitals in California had a profit margin of more than 25% in 2007, according to data from the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. The average for the state’s other for-profit psychiatric hospitals was about 6%.

The data also shed some light on how PSI has achieved these results.

PSI’s California hospitals proportionally have fewer registered nurses than other private psychiatric facilities: about one for every four beds, compared with one for every two beds, according to the state data. Overall, the PSI hospitals have about one-third fewer staffers per bed.

There’s nothing wrong with growing one’s business, but not at the expense of patient care. And this is a prime example of an argument that hospitals — all hospitals of all types — should be run as non-profit organizations, rather than for-profit businesses which are rewarded for cost cutting, regardless of patient care.

The article is a long piece and goes into detail about these concerns, illustrated throughout with the tragic stories of those affected by PSI’s care.

It’s worth the read.

If you ever wondered what kind of racketeering operation is being utilized by PSYS look no further than the end of this article. We mentally impaired individuals, adolescents, adults, elderly are publicly traded commodities. Well, at least they are suffering with the economy now, I guess this means more abuse and negligence in the coming months as their padded executive salaries and already suffering staff to patient ratios go down the tubes.

http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ:PSYS

Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Nashville Business Journal

http://milwaukee.bizjournals.com/nashville/stories/2008/12/08/daily10.html

Citing stagnant growth in psychiatric care, Longbow Securities has downgraded shares of Psychiatric Solutions from “buy” to “neutral” status.

Longbow Research health care analyst David Bachman says in a release that behavioral health industry volumes are flattening and, “we believe PSYS is at risk of not meeting its 7 percent to 9 percent annual growth targets for same hospital revenue.”

The downgrade comes on the heels of a business boom for Franklin, Tenn.-based Psychiatric Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: PSYS). In this year’s first quarter, the company reported net income was up 41 percent to $25.5 million.

And in March, Psychiatric Solutions acquired five inpatient psychiatric facilities in Florida and Kentucky, a deal expected at the time to generate revenue of about $68 million in the next 12 months.

The acquisitions included more than 300 acute beds and about 100 residential treatment center beds.

The downward industry trend is likely to continue, Bachman says, “as economic conditions worsen in 2009.”

Bachman says his opinion is based on Longbow’s quarterly industry behavioral health care facility admissions survey which shows “significant change” in volume growth at all levels of behavioral health care. Among the findings of the proprietary surveys of behavioral health care facility admissions personnel:

• Most industry contacts, 83.3 percent, reported no change in admissions volumes compared to the fourth quarter of 2007. Just 6.7 percent said admissions were higher year over year in this year’s fourth quarter.

• Children and adolescent populations experienced no growth for 94.4 percent of industry contacts. In contrast, 42.9 percent of contacts reported year-over-year increases in adolescent admissions in the previous quarter.

The adult side fared just slightly better, with 10.3 percent of contacts reporting year-over-year gains in admissions. More than three quarters of survey respondents reported flat admissions volumes since the 2007 fourth quarter..

• More moderation in capacity constraints, and open beds are common. Just less than half of contacts, 43.3 percent, reported operating at capacity during this year’s fourth quarter and 83.3 percent of facilities polled typically have open beds.

December 5th marks the anniversary of the untimely death of Ramona Knapp.

Ramona Barbara Bowden Knapp (1954 - 2005) - Find A Grave Memorial

On this day at 6:00pm there will be a candle light vigil on the West Steps of the State Capitol. Please come out and show your sympathy to the family of Ramona. I will be bringing a large card for all to sign. Candles will be provided. This will be a tasteful ceremony, not so much a protest rally.

View Larger Map

Thank you Christina and Robin for doing such remarkably well thought out research. Your work was both extensive, eye opening, and right on target.

http://www.latimes.com

ProPublica Multimedia and Additional Stories

Peter DaSilva / For The Times
Carrie Thomas comforts her mother, Vickie Burton, whose husband, Steven, died after checking into a Sacramento hospital for treatment of alcohol abuse and depression.

Psychiatric Care’s Peril and Profits

Lapses at Psychiatric Solutions Inc., a major hospital chain with high earnings, have put patients at risk, regulators find. Some have even died.

By Christina Jewett and Robin Fields, ProPublica Staff Writers
November 23, 2008

Psychiatric Solutions Inc. was on its way to becoming the nation’s leading provider of private psychiatric care when it snapped up Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento in mid-2005.

The company put its well-honed business formula into action: Staffing fell. Beds filled up. Profits soared.

It was a winning strategy for investors. But for some patients, federal records show, checking into Sierra Vista proved dangerous – at times deadly.

In December 2005, Ramona Knapp, 51, was left fatally brain damaged after hospital workers restrained her improperly, pinning her to the floor.

In March 2007, an unidentified 29-year-old woman was mistakenly given six times the prescribed dose of a potent antipsychotic drug. Even after 15 hours, she was too weak to swallow.

When Steven Burton, 55, checked in for treatment of alcohol abuse and depression in February, he complained of chest pains. The intake nurse didn’t notify a doctor because, as she later told regulators, “he didn’t look sick.”

Burton was discovered the next morning, facedown on the floor of his room, shaking and sweating. Staffers put him back in bed and paged a psychiatrist, getting no response. Two and a half hours later, a nurse found him blue and not breathing.

Burton, an El Dorado County agriculture official, came to Sierra Vista only at the insistence of his wife, Vickie.

“The last thing I was thinking,” she said, “was that I was taking him to the place where he was going to die.”

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http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1421150.html

By Andy Furillo
afurillo@sacbee.com
Published: Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008 | Page 1A

In Sacramento, he punched a 76-year-old woman in the face and kicked her in the head, twice. In Burlingame, he broke another woman’s jaw and knocked out three of her teeth. In San Bruno, he smashed in the windows of a house with a shovel and threatened to kill everybody inside.

He also told staff at the Sacramento Mental Health Treatment Center “voices from the TV were telling him to kill.”

Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and with a 20-year history of violence, Ofiu Edwards Foto still wound up living in a tiny, unlocked group home in Oak Park, where authorities say he exploded into violence again.

This time, on Sept. 5, investigators said, 6-foot-2, 300-pound Foto grabbed a wooden chair and beat Pausta Theresia Sibarani, 65, to death with it. He also is accused of gravely injuring her husband, Tumber Purba, 69. They both worked in the facility called Sandy’s Guest Home.

At Foto’s arraignment on Wednesday, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Savage delayed proceedings until Feb. 20 while the defendant’s lawyer decides whether to file a motion on his client’s mental competency.

The case spotlights the gap between California’s criminal justice and the requirements of the mental health system.

“It’s a danger that’s out there a lot – it’s a time bomb,” said Robert J. Saria, a Sacramento defense lawyer and former prosecutor who specializes in mental health cases. “We all kind of hold our breath.”

Such homicides are a rarity, but according to Saria, they shouldn’t surprise anybody who knows the interplay between the mental health and justice systems.

“For some people, it is a foreseeable gamble when they get out,” Saria said.

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Just to give our readers an update, we have been working behind the scenes to gather information and to present a picture of what is happening after the last article was written by the Sacramento Bee on September, 11, 2008.

It appears that the case for Steven Burton has been dropped by the Bee. I believe the family is still pursuing legal action against the hospital.

I recently called to chat with Larry Menard of the Department of Justice, who investigated the Sunday Adeife case. I was curious to know how a health worker was allowed to continue working despite recent allegations of sexual assault.

Larry Menard informed me that Adeife had been a temporary staff person at Heritage Oaks during the time of the incident. He had also previously worked at Sacramento County Mental Health Treatment Center or SCMHTC, where he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman. Larry stated that the womans claims regarded fondling, and so no evidence could be collected of the occurence. Nothing was apparently reported to his employer, and they (an unknown staffing agency) continued to allow him to work in different hospitals.

I asked Larry point blank if Heritage Oaks would be held responsible for the conduct of this employee, and he responded that “probably” the staffing agency would be held liable.

How nice don’t you think? Heritage Oaks can hire and dispose of whoever they like, and since they are doing it via a separate agency they are not held responsible at all for background checks or any review of criminal activity or history. My impression from speaking with Larry was one of disinterest in the case of responsibility. Apparently a man who was accused of sexually abusing a patient under 18 years of age was allowed to continue in his conduct prior to this incident, in a hospital that works almost in tandem with Heritage Oaks and Psychiatric Solutions Inc.

Please read this article to get more info on the story as reported by several sources: Heritage Oaks Worker arrested in patient’s rape There are 3 pages of several articles.

In lieu of Steven Burton and the case against Sunday Adeife, and as I have reported recently the Sacramento Bee and even the Roseville District Representative Ted Gaines have lost interest in this issue. The Bee has begun reporting on other stories of psychiatric illness and the case of homelessness as their usual daily news comes in, while ignoring any of the currently outstanding issues with Sierra Vista or Heritage Oaks. We have not heard one iota about SCMHTC.

Ted Gaines has also taken a step back by calling people who have contacted his office interested in information and telling them that he is backing down from any pursuit of the hospital. I have not received any call to this effect personally.

What could be the cause of all of this muffled silence? Is it possible that PSI has written a check to cover any hardships incurred by the Bee or Gaines in the pursuit of truth? The way both have backed away from the issues so suddenly brings questions of whether there was a silent party intervening on behalf of the hospital. It’s obvious that public sentiment has not settled down, as the Mary Smith Case seems to be moving forward, as is the case for several others, an employee wrongfully terminated, a juvenile who was sexually assaulted, and the family of Ramona Knapp.

As Laurel Mildred, the Executive Director of California Network
of Mental Health Clients states in the first Sacramento Bee article, the situation at Sierra Vista Hospital is “a public health emergency.”

Still waiting to hear from someone in the upper echelons of State oversight and public health to make a move on this issue.

Sacbee Review

Check this movie out at various theatres around Sacramento for a great Halloween excuse to get out of the house:

The Century 7 Downtown is showing this film at 6:45pm and 9:55pm.

Changeling Trailers at Apple.com

After the death of Ricardo Abrahams, it seems police are finally starting to get the hint that their involvement with the mentally ill is slightly LESS than stellar. This fluff article details the supposed training that is now starting in Yolo (Woodland is in Yolo County) and El Dorado County. I guess it takes a wrongful death to get people to wake up to the fact that abuse and punishment of persons who have not committed any crime is, oh I don’t know, WRONG?!

Officers learn how to confront people suffering a mental crisis

By David Richie - drichie@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B3

Authorities in Yolo and El Dorado counties are holding special training to help police officers learn how best to confront people caught up in a mental health crisis.

“We start each class with an agreement that mental health problems are a medical issue,” said Michael Summers, a retired police officer who coordinates Yolo County’s Crisis Intervention Team training.

“Cops by nature are rescuers,” Summers said. That tendency to rush in can get officers into trouble when dealing with someone with mental illness.

Often, the key is to “slow things down,” Summers said.

Officers in the 32-hour Yolo County class are taught that in many cases, people having a mental crisis cannot process what’s happening around them. The people officers might consider defiant are simply befuddled.

That concept is driven home by use of a special helmet that officers can wear during training. It replicates the voices and hallucinations that a person may experience during a severe mental episode, Summers said.

Officers are taught to recognize early warning signs that someone may be contemplating “suicide by cop.” For example, a slow-motion vehicle pursuit may be a warning that someone is trying to gather enough courage for a final confrontation, Summers said.

El Dorado County residents and local officials have endured several of those scenarios recently.

“We have had something like seven recent shootings in this county involving people with mental health issues,” said Bonnie McLane, a Georgetown resident who chairs the El Dorado County Mental Health Commission.

McLane congratulated Sheriff Jeff Neves and advocates with the National Alliance on Mental Illness for spearheading an eight-hour crisis intervention program. So far, about 100 sheriff’s deputies as well as officers from nearby police agencies have taken the training.

Neves will be seeking deputies interested in the 40-hour crisis intervention training, said John Bachman, director of the El Dorado County Department of Mental Health.

“The gist of the program is to recognize mental illness when you see it,” Bachman said.

With that recognition comes a whole box of new tools that patrol deputies may use to defuse potentially dangerous situations. They are learning how to talk to individuals about whatever is going on inside their heads.

Sheriff’s deputies and county mental health professionals also are establishing a hotline. Soon they will be able to exchange information about known patients. The mental health experts may give deputies suggestions on how to handle situations in the field, Bachman said.

When officials looked into the issue, they discovered a lack of basic training available for law enforcement.

“They get maybe two to three hours of lecture in the police academy. It’s cursory,” Bachman said.

Summers and Bachman say the training is not a “fix-all” – especially for officers confronted by an armed person in a public area. Several fatal shootings in El Dorado County fit that category.

“You still have to do whatever you have to do to get home safely that night,” Summers said.

About the writer:

* Call The Bee’s David Richie, (916) 608-7455.

Don’t Call the Cops. Ever. by Dan Spielberg - Editorial Blog Comment

To express your outrage, please send the Daily Democrat a comment: http://www.topix.net/forum/source/daily-democrat

WPD cleared by state

Deputy State AG: ‘No further action at this time’
By Democrat staff

Article Created: 10/09/2008 09:02:56 AM PDT

Woodland police restrain Ricardo Abrahams on his belly on May 28, 2008 before he died in custody. The WPD was cleared of any wrongdoing by the state in Abrahams’ death. (Matthew Henderson/Democrat)

The Woodland Police Department stated it was cleared of any wrongdoing in the death of Ricardo Abrahams, 44, in a press release Wednesday evening.

The release stated that Deputy Attorney General Davis A. Lowe found no criminal conduct on the part of officers who detained Abrahams. The county coroner stated Abrahams died of positional asphyxiation shortly after being detained by police on May 28.

” … We find no criminal conduct on the part of any of the involved officers, and consequently, no further action will be taken at this time,” Lowe stated.

The declaration closes the state’s investigation into the incident.

The scuffle with police involved multiple Tasers and batons.

Several officers confronted Abrahams near the Safe Harbor Crisis House, a voluntary psychiatric treatment center he had checked himself into the day before, after receiving reports from staff members that he was acting out. Abrahams suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, according to the Yolo County Coroner’s report.

According to police, Abrahams - who was 5-feet-11-inches tall and weighed 313 pounds - became physically and verbally combative, and officers hit his limbs with their batons and deployed their Tasers in an attempt to subdue him. After police had wrestled him to the ground and restrained him with two pairs of handcuffs, they discovered he was no longer breathing.

One witness at the scene, Marcella Fitzgerald, a psychiatric health specialist with the Yolo County Department of Mental Health, later told police investigators that she had seen the officers “dog pile” Abrahams.

Officers administered CPR until an ambulance arrived and transported Abrahams to Woodland Healthcare, where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

WPD’s also closed its own internal investigation, concluding officers acted within the department’s “Use of Force” policies.

Police Chief Carey Sullivan stated, “This has been a tragic event for all those involved, the Abrahams family, our officers and the community. Throughout these investigations I have remained confident our officers acted within the scope and spirit of their authority, even when you do things right, for the right reasons there can be unintended and unexpected outcomes. … As an organization we are committed to seeking ways to avoid future such tragedies.”

Coroner: Taser Did Not Kill Woodland Man

Aug 1, 2008 9:14 am US/Pacific WOODLAND (CBS13) ― The Yolo County Coroner’s office says Taser shots did not kill a man who died in May after police confronted him.

Ricardo Abrahams died of suffocation while sheriff’s officials restrained him.

The coroner’s office says the death was positional asphyxia, which occurs when someone can’t breathe because of their position.

Police restrained the 44-year-old after being called to deal with an agitated, aggressive man.

Parents Of Woodland Mental Patient Suing Police

Jun 27, 2008 8:45 am US/Pacific WOODLAND (CBS13) ― The parents of a 44-year-old Woodland mental patient who died in police custody after being hit with a Taser multiple times are suing the Woodland Police Department.

The family of Ricardo Abrahams says that police used unreasonable and excessive force to subdue their son. They say that aside from being shocked with the stun device, he was also hit multiple times with police batons.

Read original story on Page 2

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And this time she is not taking a sympathetic position on the issue. In the last week Cynthia has written several articles regarding the following two cases of mentally ill women who have been involved in crime:

1. Should mentally ill mom take full blame in toddler’s near drowning? -Cynthia’s answer is Yes.
2. Jailed panhandler regrets shooting disabled man in Sacramento - The case of a mentally ill homeless woman.

Her statements in the second article seem absolutely scathing, twisted and cruel. Far be it for a journalist to take pitty on any segment of mankind. Most journalists harbor an arsenal of fear, anger and resentment towards the American public, but take a special delight in cutting to ribbons the sensitive and weakest members of American society: those who are mentally or emotionally disturbed, especially the homeless. And such interest in these stories by the news media seem to even outnumber their interest in more positive stories, or even just outright Good News. You see, the Sacramento Bee has a few Top Priority objectives: outrage the public, play up both sides of any issue, and generally confuse people about their social/political alliances.

Looking haggard in her orange-and-white jumpsuit, Jackson yawned occasionally during the half-hour interview in a Sacramento Main Jail visiting room.

For the most part, Jackson’s account could not shed light on why someone would journey to Sacramento and explode into violence on a busy street corner.

Jackson said she is struggling with money and housing because “the world” is stealing from her. Regarding the events that landed her in jail: “I know the devil is involved.”

She said she started carrying a gun after she had been assaulted a year ago.

She gave a lengthy explanation about why she felt threatened by Perez, but the details do not match police and witness accounts of what happened at the bus stop.

Jackson, who has a California identification card, has no address and said she arrived on a Greyhound bus from Reno just before the shooting.

She spent Sunday night at the Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission without leaving much of an impression, said spokesman Sean Ryan. Jackson had a bed reserved there Monday night, Ryan said.

Jackson said she came to Sacramento after losing her bed.

She could not articulate some specifics of her background – such as when she first came to Sacramento, or why – but said she was born in Chicago, and raised on and off in Indiana.

Los Angeles court records show she had a drug case there in 2000, and she claimed to have stayed in homeless shelters in Sacramento, but people at the larger ones in town on Tuesday could not recall her.

Jackson said that when she got off the bus in Sacramento she was searching for a pay phone to call local shelters when she encountered Perez.

Public records suggest Jackson lived for a time at a public housing complex in Springfield, Ill., and later at a shelter in Wheatland, Colo.

She said she has no family in the area and has two daughters who graduated from college and live in the Midwest.

“I raised them on my own so I had to do something good,” Jackson said. She said they have not been in touch.

“I’m trying to do this on my own,” she said. “(My daughters) can’t afford to give me a house. They got their own life.”

At the end, Jackson asked when she would be leaving the jail, and told a Bee reporter she would keep her in her prayers.

She offered none to Frank Perez.

Perhaps it is more a case that Cynthia Hubert herself is confused as to who she sides with. It would surely seem that way when during one series of articles she is playing ultra sympathetic to a family who recently lost their father to a very negligent psychiatric hospital, of which the SacBee has written extensively. And then a few weeks later she writes a totally back-stabbing article after a coroners report is released, basically implying that Sierra Vista has been cleared of any and ALL wrong doing. To her, and to the SacBee, the entire problem seems to now be solved? Case Closed.

Since that time we readers have not heard TWO WORDS from any authors of any of the articles as regards their actual thoughts, feelings, or encouragement of these issues. We were completely ignored as if our involvement in these issues does not exist? There has also been no further mention or story since Steve Burton’s death was discredited. Lawyers for the family are still seeking trial for Sierra Vista’s involvement in his death, despite these rumors created by Cynthia Hubert that Sierra Vista is no longer to blame.

Perhaps as is the case with a lot of Sacramento Bee writing, the right people got to the editors and paid a handsome fee to have public sentiment towards mental illness re-prioritized. Case in point, the article about Fotini Huntley who recently called 9-1-1 after allegedly trying to drown her infant daughter.

What kind of a mother would try to kill her own child?

One like Andrea Yates of Houston. Or, Lashuan Harris of Oakland. And now, police say, Fotini Huntley of Citrus Heights.

Although the circumstances vary, the accused mothers have something significant in common. All are said to suffer from severe mental illness.

Cases like these befuddle the courts and other systems designed to hold criminals accountable and protect innocents. Is a mother who is mentally ill capable of safely caring for a child? And if a tragedy occurs, should the mother be held fully accountable?

Cynthia goes on to explain that Fotini has been suffering from schizophrenia for a very long time, and that she has been taking medication and following treatment and also has been showing signs of consistency in her mental well being. She is also married and her husband has been cleared for the most part of any mental illness himself.

But Cynthia Hubert’s approach seems cynical, while quoting representatives of the family, and advocates such as NAMI Sacramento, she tends to sweep much of the positive sentiment towards mental illness under the rug by sensationalizing the aspects of mental illness that play into public condemnation.

It is needless to say that her article has whipped a lot of SacBee readers into a frenzy, many calling for the whole sale sterilization of women who have been accused of mental illness. A sentiment that hearkens back to the national abuses of the American Victorian Era, when mentally ill people were considered to have no humanity at all, and were institutionalized for life, sterilized to prevent the spread of their illness (a practice known as Eugenics) and who were kept in squalid state institutions, and buried without any acknowledgment of their lives. Much like the slaves of the pre-civil war era, and many American immigrants from 1800 to the present. Keep in mind however that these are the same readers who call for the sterilization of mothers who receive welfare benefits from the County and State, who feel that first time criminal offenders should be hanged, and who also think homeless persons in general should be rounded up and shot en masse.

“This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too.”

Perhaps Cynthia responds to these sentiments, as they are often found in the comments sections of many of the Sierra Vista related articles, and has found herself a new niche catering to the popular crowd of readers spewing hate-filled fascistic rhetoric anonymously in almost every other Sacramento Bee article. It must be that Cynthia and SacBee find it necessary from time to time to pay allegiance to their most devoted readership, by back-stabbing their constituents who have provided for them meaningful stories on issues that have provided them an even greater amount of attention in the very competitive scene of local journalism.

Perhaps instead of vindictiveness towards the mentally ill, Cynthia Hubert is more concerned with the fact that she has to write these articles in the first place. Perhaps as a journalist she is low on the totem pole, and is grudgingly assigned such cases, where she has to speak and correspond with such undesirable individuals. Maybe her approach is more out of dread of having to cover such a story at all. But I doubt it, something tells me that many of her statements reveal almost a hint of pleasure, and for that my blood runs cold.

Find some other segment of the population to exploit Cynthia Hubert, it’s not like we aren’t exploited enough. We certainly don’t need snake-like reporters crawling around looking for a bit of meat to fatten the editorial section with.

The protest went SMASHINGLY! There were perhaps 20-25+ sign carrying protesters. Some carried multiple signs with both hands. Cars flew by the entire time honking their horns and waving at us. Several people stopped and were willing to take a flier from me regarding the website. Here is me with my sign (which was double sided).

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Starting at 9am in front of Sierra Vista Hospital located in South Sacramento:

View Larger Map

Pages: 1 · 2

http://www.sacbee.com/health/story/921802.html

By Chelsea Phua - cphua@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, May 8, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B3

Authorities have arrested a 41-year-old health worker accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled patient when he worked at a Sacramento psychiatric hospital.

Online court records show Sunday Adelani Adeife was arraigned Wednesday afternoon on numerous felony counts of rape and sexual battery of a disabled person incapable of giving consent.

According to the affidavit submitted to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, the 17-year-old victim was hospitalized in early March at the Heritage Oaks Hospital for “being gravely disabled and unable to care for herself.”

She reported to authorities that during the second night of her stay she was sexually assaulted and fondled.

Staffing records showed Adeife working the night shift of the second night of the girl’s stay, the affidavit said. Surveillance video also showed him entering her room more frequently and staying longer than in any other patient’s, the affidavit said.

DNA samples taken from Adeife’s saliva match those found on the girl, authorities said. He also fit the physical description of the attacker she provided.

Heritage Oaks said in a statement that the hospital is working with authorities in the investigation: “As soon as the incident was reported to us in March, we contacted state and police authorities.”

Detailed Editorial and Photograph of Sunday Adeife on the next page…

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1239118.html

By Cynthia Hubert - chubert@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B3

Suzandell George and Donald Kelley, both of Sacramento, carry candles Monday in a south area mortuary as part of a remembrance of those who died in mental hospitals and were buried in unmarked graves. Hector Amezcua

They lived inside California’s mental hospitals, and died in obscurity.

The bodies of thousands of people confined to state facilities were buried in mass graves between the 1880s and 1960s, and their grave markers have long since disappeared.

But thanks to the efforts of a group of advocates, they have not been forgotten.

On Monday in Sacramento, about 75 people gathered at a south area mortuary to honor about 45,000 physically and mentally ill people committed to state hospitals and developmental centers but never claimed in death. Many of the facilities have now closed, and their cemeteries have fallen into disrepair.

“These were individuals who had a horrific past, who were not treated like human beings,” said Wesley Chesbro, a former state senator and an advocate for disabled people. “But in fact, each and every one of them had a story, had a family, had a past.”

They were people like Lou Williamson, a “mental health consumer” who said he was incarcerated at Dewitt and Mendocino state hospitals in the 1960s.

“I am fortunate,” he said at Monday’s event, “that I am free today.” Williamson earned a master’s degree after his release, but still struggles with mental issues.

They were people like speaker Frances Gracechild’s grandmother, who died in a state institution in the upper Midwest.

Gracechild, director of Resources for Independent Living in Sacramento, never thought much about the role of such institutions. Earlier in her life in Southern California, she said, she passed daily by Patton State Hospital. “I just drove by,” she said. “I never stopped to investigate. I carry that in my heart somehow today.”

The memorial service, one of several held in locations across the state every September, was part of the California Memorial Project, created in 2002 by state law.

Besides honoring lost souls every year, the project plans to restore cemeteries on the grounds of state hospitals and developmental centers, locate graves and mark as many as possible, said Alicia Mendoza of Protection and Advocacy, a sponsor of the project.

By Ken Paglia | Democrat staff writer
September 14, 2008 14:30

Even though former El Dorado County assistant Agricultural Commissioner Steven Burton died almost a year ago in a Sacramento psychiatric facility, there is still debate over whom to blame. And despite a recent autopsy stating Burton’s death was “natural,” an attorney for the Burton family is preparing a wrongful death suit aimed at the hospital.

Burton, 55, who was being treated at Sierra Vista Hospital in Sacramento for alcoholism, reportedly collapsed in his hospital room on Feb. 16 after asking for a respirator.

Sierra Vista was fined $25,000 by the California Department of Public Health for its role in his death.

Department of Public Health information officer Ralph Montano explained the fine.

“The administrative penalty issued to Sierra Vista Hospital on Feb. 29, 2008, was levied because the hospital failed to ensure the safe delivery of patient care services, and failed to implement policies and procedures to provide for appropriate and prompt interventions and monitoring,” said Montano.

“Note that in this case, as with all cases of administrative penalties, there was an opportunity to appeal. In this particular case, there was not an appeal requested after the penalty was issued. The fine has already been paid,” he said.

The Sacramento County Coroner’s autopsy released last week shows Burton died as a result of liver damage that led to the buildup of medication in his body.

Sierra Vista CEO Nancy Purtell told the Mountain Democrat on Friday that blame for Burton’s death has been wrongly placed on the hospital.

“The autopsy speaks for itself, and it does identify that he died of natural causes. In our care for Mr. Burton we did all we can, and we acted appropriately,” said Purtell.

But attorney Daniel Wilcoxen, who represents Burton’s family, is in the process of filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

“We know that Mr. Burton complained and needed help. The records indicate that the facility was calling their own physician, who was allegedly on call, for four hours before his death, and nobody responded. They finally did take him to Kaiser (hospital), and pronounced him dead when he arrived. He was treated inappropriately. You don’t wait for him to die,” said Wilcoxen.

The Sacramento County coroner familiar with Burton’s case was out of town at press time. The Mountain Democrat will contact him for comment on the autopsy this week.

Ken Paglia can be reached at kpaglia@mtdemocrat.net or at (530) 344-5071. Share your opinion.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1227412.html

By Cynthia Hubert - chubert@sacbee.com

Published 12:00 am PDT Thursday, September 11, 2008
Story appeared in OUR REGION section, Page B1

A Camino man’s death at Sierra Vista Hospital earlier this year occurred from natural causes, an autopsy report shows, and apparently not as a result of poor care at the troubled psychiatric center.

Steven Grant Burton, 55, collapsed in his room in February after the hospital failed to provide the respirator he needed while sleeping, records show. State inspectors blamed his death on Sierra Vista and fined the hospital $25,000, its second such penalty this year for allegedly jeopardizing the lives of patients.

Sierra Vista, which is planning an $8 million expansion to its hospital on Bruceville Road, is under scrutiny for having one of California’s worst patient mistreatment records.

Lapses in care have been blamed for three patient deaths since 2000, including Burton’s. A state report issued earlier this year shows that he died from cardiorespiratory arrest after the facility failed to provide him with a respirator.

But the Sacramento County coroner has classified Burton’s death as “natural.”

A coroner’s report released this week finds that Burton, whose widow earlier told The Bee that she took him to Sierra Vista because of drinking problems, died as a result of liver damage that led to a toxic buildup of prescription medicines in his body.

The coroner’s investigation found “elevated” amounts of amlodipine, a calcium channel blocker, and duloxetine, an antidepressant, in Burton’s system. He had serious liver damage that “prevented his body from properly flushing the medications” from his body and caused the drugs to build up to a lethal level, according to the report prepared by deputy coroner Heather Wood.

Burton, who was El Dorado County’s assistant commissioner for agriculture, suffered from chronic alcoholism, major depression and “mild to moderate” heart disease, the report says.

Daniel Wilcoxen, an attorney representing the Burton family, did not return a telephone call from The Bee on Wednesday.

Sierra Vista’s chief executive officer, Nancy Purtell, issued a written statement saying that the autopsy report on Burton concludes “that he did not die due to any fault of Sierra Vista or its patient care.”

She said she would not discuss specifics of the case to protect the Burton family’s privacy.

Sierra Vista, which is planning to add 48 beds to its current 72, is under scrutiny by regulators and a state assemblyman for its record of poor care, which includes 111 citations by inspectors since 2004. Most of Sierra Vista’s problems stem from inadequate staff and training, according to records.

Hospital officials recently announced that they have hired two new administrators in an effort to improve conditions at the facility.

About the writer:

* Call The Bee’s Cynthia Hubert, (916) 321-1082.

First they make a crap-ton of money:

Joey Jacobs, the CEO of Psychiatric Solutions, will earn a base salary of $1.5 million this year, up 20 percent from 2007. He also stands to earn a substantially bigger bonus, option and restricted stock payments than last year, cementing his place as one of Middle Tennessee’s highest-paid executives.

In its proxy statement filed this afternoon, Psych Solutions (Ticker: PSYS) details the compensation packages of Jacobs and his leadership team. Jacobs, who co-founded the Franklin-based company in 1997, pocketed cash, options and restricted shares worth $5.1 million last year, up almost 20 percent from 2006.

That number that included $1.2 million in salary and more than $1.5 million in non-equity bonus payouts, which are based primarily on the company’s EBITDA and earnings per share.

Shares of Psych Solutions fell 13 percent last year, ending a stellar run that took them from less than $5 in the spring of 2003 to $37 at the end of 2006. Year to date, they’re down another 3 percent.

For 2008, Jacobs can earn up to $2 million – 133 percent of his base salary – in bonuses. He also will have the chance to earn 125,000 options and 100,000 restricted shares this year. Both those numbers are up from 60,000 in 2007.

Money management giant Fidelity Investments increased its holdings in LifePoint Hospitals by more than 2.5 million shares during the first quarter.

The Boston-based company now owns a shade over 7 million LifePoint shares, or 12.3 percent of the hospital company (Ticker: LPNT). At the end of 2007, those numbers were 4.4 million and 8.2 percent, respectively.

On the flip side, Fidelity slashed its stake in BioMimetic earlier this year, dumping more than half of the 2.7 million shares it owned. Its stake in the Franklin biotech (Ticker: BMTI) now stands at 6.8 percent.

http://www.nashvillepost.com/news

Joey Jacobs, CEO of PSI Psychiatric Solutions plays to win. This guy is dropping checks like Hollywood Santa Claus on Christmas! There is $46,150 in contributions for the 2008 campaign alone! Don’t skip this, there are some very interesting presidential finds towards the bottom, including the McCain Palin ticket in 2007 which I find interesting since it wasn’t official until last month:

http://www.newsmeat.com

TENN POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE INC (TENN PAC)
$5,000
primary 02/14/08

FEDERATION OF AMERICAN HOSPITALS PAC
$5,000
primary 02/07/08

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHIATRIC HEALTH SYSTEMS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (NAPHS/PAC)
$5,000
primary 02/06/08

RICHARDSON, BILL (D)
President
RICHARDSON FOR PRESIDENT INC.
$1,150
primary 06/29/07

COOPER, JAMES H. S. (D)
House (TN 05)
COOPER FOR CONGRESS COMMITTEE
$2,300
primary 06/21/07

ROMNEY, MITT ®
President
ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT INC.
$4,600
primary 04/19/07

ROMNEY, MITT ®
President
ROMNEY FOR PRESIDENT INC.
$-2,300
primary 04/19/07

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHIATRIC HEALTH SYSTEMS POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (NAPHS/PAC)
$5,000
primary 04/12/07

MCCAIN AND SARAH H. PALIN, JOHN S. ®
President
JOHN MCCAIN 2008 INC.
$2,300
primary 02/28/07

GORE, AL (D)
President
GORE 2000 INC
$1,000
primary 09/27/99

GORE, AL (D)
President
GORE 2000 INC
$1,000
primary 09/27/99

http://ca.us.biz.yahoo.com/ap/080826/psychiatric_solutions_mover.html

It appears that the Justice Department and the financial sector are "aware" of the issues with Sierra Vista [see red print]. However this article would obviously fail to mention it in any respect, obviously because all they care about is money. See also the comment that "no such issue exists". Even investing firms are covering PSI's respective A-S-S on this issue.

This also prompts me to look further into the Justice Department's involvement, although I am sure such a slow moving bureaucracy would not be too interested... Will report if I find anything after more research. I suspect it is in relation to a facility owned in Chicago which very recently (August) reported a string of sexual assault cases against children.

Psychiatric Solutions shares rise on Citi outlook
Tuesday August 26, 5:11 pm ET

Psychiatric Solutions shares rise as Citi reaffirms 'Buy' rating, positive outlook

NEW YORK (AP) -- Psychiatric Solutions Inc. will likely see an increase in patients, boosting revenue and driving both earnings per share and the company's stock price, according to Citi analyst Gary Taylor.

Shares of the Franklin, Tenn.-based, which runs psychiatric hospitals and provides behavioral health services, rose $1.02, or 2.8 percent, to $37.18 Tuesday. The stock has traded between $27.17 and $40.71 over the past 52 weeks.

Taylor reaffirmed a "Buy" rating late Monday, saying the shares are actually trading at a 10 percent to 15 percent discount, because of perceived quality-of-care issues, following media reports in July focusing on one of the company's hospitals.

"Our additional diligence reinforces our belief that no such issue exists," he said in a note to investors.

On Aug. 1, the company said it received a Justice Department request for information on that facility and that it was complying.

Taylor reaffirmed a $41 price target and expects patient volumes at existing facilities to grow, pushing earnings-per-share growth in the "high-teens" for the next two to three years. The company is mostly immune from the effects of changes in Medicare reimbursement policies faced by the broader hospital operator sector, he added.

Still, risks include the company's dependence on a "modest" number of hospital acquisitions to meet its profit goals and the company's debt is more leveraged than its peers, on average, Taylor said.

http://suttermedicalcenter.org/psychiatry/

I was just informed by a former Sutter Health therapist that ECT is still a commonly used treatment option for individuals who suffer from severe depression or mood disturbances. Please read the following information provided on the Sutter Health website. Also keep in mind that the Sutter Center for Psychiatry in Sacramento is the facility where ECT is still regularly used.

For more information on the practice of electroconvulsive therapy please see www.ect.org. This site offers a wealth of information both pro, con and neutral and it also hosts a discussion forum.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)

Treatment Overview

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is a procedure used to treat severe depression. It may be used in people with symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, or suicidal thoughts or when other treatments such as psychotherapy and antidepressant medications have not worked. It is also used for other psychiatric and neurological conditions, such as schizophrenia and Parkinson’s disease.

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