Connecticut
Rampant Neglect and Abuse at Connecticut Mental Health Center Disputed by Agency Spokesman
NEW HAVEN — An investigation by Disability Rights Connecticut has found that the Connecticut Mental Health Center failed to investigate sexual assault claims, restrained or secluded patients without proper documentation or monitoring, and allowed mice to infest its facility.
The center, run by the Yale School of Medicine and the state’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, is a 20-bed facility for patients suffering from serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, sometimes combined with substance abuse.
“DRCT’s systemic findings uncovered a pervasive culture of DMHAS’ and CMHC’s failure to adequately protect and treat patients under its care,” the report reads.
The investigation outlined in the report spanned nearly three years — from April 2021 to February 2024. The organization looked at the records of 14 patients at the facility, visited six times and interviewed staff and patients.
Rachel Mirsky, the supervisory attorney at Disability Rights Connecticut, told CT Examiner that the organization decided to investigate the center after receiving multiple complaints about the conditions there.
Abuse incidents
The report describes an incident where a 25-year-old woman was sexually assaulted by a male patient on two different occasions in the spring and summer of 2021. The facility allegedly failed to investigate the assaults. The woman, who had been diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder as well as having a borderline intellectual disability, left the facility after three months.
Another woman, 23, who came into the facility with post-traumatic stress disorder from childhood sexual abuse, was allegedly assaulted three times by a male patient over the course of six months. None of the instances were investigated, the report claims. When it was time for her to leave the facility, the report states she was discharged to her family despite having told her treatment team that she had been abused by her brother, who also lived there. She returned to the center a week later after relapsing into substance abuse, and was alleged to have been sexually harassed on a number of occasions over the following six months. None of those allegations were reported or investigated, according to the report.
The report also found that a number of patients were denied essential care, including the lack of assigned psychologists and the absence of plans to support positive behavior. The report noted that the 23-year-old woman was prescribed emergency psychotropic drugs — chemical restraints — 14 times and was physically restrained on one occasion, but never received a psychological assessment or behavior plan.
The center is also accused of failing to consistently document the use of restraint and seclusion on patients, which is meant to be used only when the person or others in the vicinity are in immediate physical danger, and requires a doctor to sign a form indicating that restraints are necessary. According to the report, this documentation was regularly missing.
A 31-year-old man diagnosed with schizophrenia was admitted to the center in 2019. After about a year in the facility, he was discharged to a group home, where it is alleged that he attacked a staff person and another resident. He was sent to the emergency room and then returned to the center.
“The [center] social worker documented that shortly after his readmission to [the center], the father of John Doe #1 asked the social worker what would be different about his treatment this time and stated that John Doe #1’s previous stay with [the center] had lasted for one year and that he was discharged unchanged,” the report read.
During the 32 weeks he remained at the center, the man was physically restrained 14 times, chemically restrained 16 times and placed in seclusion six times, according to the report. The documentation required for these restraints and seclusions was allegedly incomplete or missing in all of these instances.
According to the report, the man was sexually abusive toward staff and other patients at least 50 times during his stay, but none of those instances triggered an investigation.
Over reliance of restraints on psychiatric patients rather than treatment was also reported in a 2019 investigation that Disability Rights Connecticut conducted on Whiting Forensic Hospital in Middletown.
In addition to unreported abuse and instances of restraints, the report on the Connecticut Mental Health Center found that certain patients were also regularly missing their clinical groups.
The report also criticized the facility itself, which had been beset by a mouse infestation. In September 2022, the housekeeping staff said 25 mice were captured in traps over one weekend.
“Documentation indicated that mice were present in the kitchen/dining area, lounges, and patient bedrooms. On February 21, 2024, staff reported that even though the exterminator visited the facility three times a week, they continue to see mice in patient living areas, especially at nighttime. More is needed to address this chronic and unsanitary situation,” the report noted.
The building also contains 63,000 square feet of asbestos under the floor tiles which has not yet been remediated.
State response
Chris McClure, spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, told CT Examiner in a statement that the Connecticut Mental Health Center and all its facilities meet the “exacting and precise objective standards of care” required by the Joint Commission, and that client care was their highest concern.
“While we appreciate the hard work and input of DRCT, and while we continue to review their report, the agency has numerous concerns with DRCT’s findings and recommendations; which include subjective criteria, calls for systems change when robust risk management, quality assurance, and critical incident reporting are already in place, and citation of isolated events that have since been remedied,” McClure said.
But Mirsky told CT Examiner that, while the department says it has oversight from the Joint Commission, which accredits and sets standards for these facilities, she questions the quality of the Joint Commission’s assessments.
“We have looked at reports from the Joint Commission and there we have found things that they did not find,” Mirsky said.
McClure noted that the department disagreed with the organization’s findings and said senior leadership was “made available to DRTC throughout to discuss the material.”
But Disability Rights Connecticut is now asking for an outside agency to oversee the center and other facilities run by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.
Of the six inpatient psychiatric hospitals that the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services runs in Connecticut, only one — Whiting Hospital — has independent oversight from the Department of Public Health, Mirsky explained.
“If [the Department of Public Health] or a similarly situated agency went in on a regular basis … people would have the ability to file complaints with them at any time,” Mirsky said. “If they get complaints, they can say, alright, we’re going to go in, we’re going to investigate. That’s not happening. We went in to investigate because no one else really is.”
The organization is also asking for the creation of a system to monitor reporting and investigations of abuse and neglect claims, a system to monitor quality of care and require reviews of restraints and seclusions.
“CMHC and its staff remain focused on the safety and care of their patients, engaging in ongoing monitoring and quality improvement for the clinical care they deliver. The center takes all feedback seriously and employs it in its ongoing efforts to improve the care that it delivers,” Yale said in a statement.
Maureen Lyons, of the Joint Commission, told CT Examiner that the commission reviews complaints. Although the commission works with organizations like CMHC to “identify potential risks to patient safety and improve quality of care,” only a “governmental entity” can require a facility to shut down, she said.
Connecticut
Wildlife Watch: Efforts to protect sea lamprey in Connecticut River
WESTMINSTER, Vt. (WCAX) – They may be considered a pest in Lake Champlain, but state wildlife officials say sea lamprey call the Connecticut River home.
While the population in Lake Champlain is controlled as a nuisance species, lampreys make up an important part of the Connecticut River ecosystem. Every year, sea lampreys spawn in the river as far upstream as Wilder Dam in the Upper Valley, and in many of the tributaries including the West, Williams, Black, and White Rivers.
In this week’s Wildlife Watch, Ike Bendavid traveled to Westminster, where Vermont Fish and Wildlife biologists are working to protect spawning habitat on the Saxtons River.
Copyright 2024 WCAX. All rights reserved.
Connecticut
Man spends $20K to transform his Connecticut home into fun, color-filled ‘dollhouse’
A New Yorker has turned his new home in Connecticut into a pop-of-color “dollhouse” after dreaming of such a space ever since he was a child.
Jonny Carmack, 31, bought his Danbury, Connecticut, home in 2020 after needing to escape Manhattan during the pandemic.
He said that this particular three-bedroom, one-and-a-half bathroom home was the first space he toured — and that it was the perfect size but didn’t have the perfect look, SWNS reported.
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However, he’d been dreaming of turning a property into his personal “dollhouse” ever since he was a kid, he said.
“When I bought this house, I knew I wanted to use it as a landing pad for my creativity,” he said.
Today, after spending roughly $20,000 on renovations, Carmack has a color-filled space that is hard to miss.
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Thanks to some help from Facebook Marketplace and HomeGoods, Carmack bought unique secondhand items to turn his new space into something special.
“I knew what I wanted the themes of my home to be, and now I have been finetuning them to push my personality out there more,” he told SWNS.
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Carmack has a fruit room, a bakery dining room, a blue lounge, a pink parlor, a pop art bathroom, an ice cream bathroom and more themed spaces within his Connecticut home.
The homeowner said he added over $100,000 in value to his home thanks to the colorful renovations and decorative items.
Carmack noted that his favorite space in the home is his kitchen.
He said it has the best lighting, and that he loves to use it for cooking and hosting.
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Carmack told Fox News Digital that his rooms were inspired by special people and places he idolized.
“Each room is designed around the vintage 1980s furniture I curated over the last 3 to 4 years,” he said. “And my biggest inspirations have been Dolly Parton, Barbie and colorful Floridian tack.”
He also told Fox News Digital that he’d always been drawn to “dollhouse aesthetics” as a child and would often imagine himself living in such a place.
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He said, “I tried to force myself into the more tame and modern stylings as an adult and decorated many spaces in various shades of beige and white before being brave enough to go bold!”
Carmack has posted about his unique space on Instagram, where he has over 177,000 followers.
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He told Fox News Digital he’s grateful to the creative community online that loves his home space as much as he does.
Connecticut
Best and Worst Connecticut Travel Times for Independence Day
AAA just released their annual report on 4th of July travel. The goal of the information dump is to make folks aware of the peak (worst) travel times for holidays. Some of this is common sense and other time periods may surprise you.
Connecticut has its own quirks that need to be accounted for but the national guidelines are pretty standard across the board. Here are the Best and Worst Travel times for this coming (2024) 4th of July holiday.
Best Travel Times By Car:
- Monday July 1 – Minimal Traffic Expected All Day
- Tuesday, July 2 – Before Noon
- Wednesday, July 3 – Before Noon
- Thursday, July 4 – Before Noon
- Friday, July 5 – Before 10am
- Saturday, July 6 – Before 10am
- Sunday, July 7 – Before 11am
- Monday, July 8 – After 7pm
Worst Travel Times By Car:
- Tuesday, July 2 – 2-6pm
- Wednesday, July 3 – 2-7pm
- Thursday, July 4 – 2-7pm
- Friday, July 5 – 11am-4pm
- Saturday, July 6 – 10:30am-2:30pm
- Sunday, July 7 – 2-8pm
- Monday, July 8 – 1-5pm
I have done the 4th of July road trip so many times I can tell you horror stories that would melt your face. For many years I went to Florida for the week of the 4th of July. We would leave in the middle of the night, 2am, 3am, 4am. The years we fooled ourselves into thinking any kind of day driving would be OK, became a nightmare. Even if you leave at 6am, you hit monstrous traffic in the Washington D.C. area that brings you to a standstill for hours.
Do yourself a favor, no matter which direction you are headed, take the AAA numbers and get even more extreme. If you can embark at 2am, you should. Happy 4th of July in advance, it is the single-greatest holiday we all celebrate.
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