There’s a new story at the Journal Sentinel entitled, “Review of Patient Safety at Mental Health Complex to Take Year: Board will issue recommendation in the interim for consideration in county’s 2011 budget.” The story offers new and vital information:
Waiting until after the November elections: Milwaukee County has already tried to quell controversy with a self-produced study (from the same people now the subject of a federal lawsuit) suggesting that problems at the Mental Health Complex were minimal. That was incredible, and one could guess easily that a more credible county report would not be forthcoming until…after the November elections.
Officials dribble the truth when there are no more excuses left to speak:
A federal inspection found multiple instances of assault and improper sex between patients during the last half of 2009. One case involved a 22-year-old who became pregnant after consensual and non-consensual sex with another patient. The Journal Sentinel reported the findings in February.
The subject came up only briefly during Tuesday’s meeting, when one of the 14 advisory board members asked how the county’s Behavioral Health Division deals with complaints of patient sexual assaults.
John Chianelli, the county’s behavioral health administrator, declined to discuss the issue until later. He said the issue would be reviewed in detail with a subcommittee on patient safety that meets July 14.
Chianelli said steps had been taken to prevent patient assaults and improve handling of assault complaints, in the aftermath of the federal inspection. The hospital’s policy banning sex between patients has been communicated to all hospital staff, signs have been posted outlining the policy and patients are advised they may take concerns about sexual harassment or assault to hospital officials or to Disability Rights Wisconsin, a state-designated patient advocacy group, Chianelli said.
The hospital also is installing video surveillance cameras in hallways to better monitor patients, he said.
Multiple instances, but only now, after a federal inspection, is Chianelli acting to fulfill obligations that were his responsibility from the day he took his post.
Consensus, etc.: There’s always talk of a need for community consensus, for recognizing that these problems happen everywhere, that it’s everyone’s responsibility. That’s nonsense: assaults like this don’t happen everywhere, abuses like this don’t take place everywhere, and officials’ attempts to claim the problems are universal are just attempts to evade personal responsibility and culpability for their many direct and immediate failures.
Admitting the lie of so called sexual self-expression: When these allegations first emerged, some contended that these patients were just ‘expressing themselves’ sexually. Assault is not, and cannot ever be, a matter of self-expression. It’s also worth noting that the overwhelming majority of these patients are admitted involuntarily and are both seriously ill and consequently vulnerable. It was impossible to contend credibly that this was a matter of healthful self-expression. Finally, an official yields to the truth:
“Sex is a treatment-interfering behavior,” said Thomas Harding, medical director of the Mental Health Complex. “We will not allow sex in that environment.”
Chianelli should have been fired long ago. His many mistakes have led to injury and abuse, and have disgraced Milwaukee County, and all Wisconsin.
I’ve posted about Chianelli’s policy, and the tragedy that is conduct at the MHC, before. See, A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update: A Milwaukee County Bureaucrat’s Immoral Utilitarianism, Update 2, Update 3, Update 4, Update 5, Update 6, Update 7, Update 8, Update 9, Update 10, Update 11, Update 12, and Update 13.