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Practices at West Virginia DHHR-Run Hospital Questioned

photo by: Photo by Steven Allen Adams

Cabinet Secretary Bill Crouch of the Department of Health and Human Resources rebutted testimony Tuesday from Disability Rights West Virginia regarding conditions at Sharpe Hospital.

CHARLESTON – The top attorney for an advocacy organization for West Virginians with disabilities accused the state Department of Health and Human Resources and Cabinet Secretary Bill Crouch of mismanagement and lack of transparency of state-run hospitals.

Members of the Joint Committee on Health heard a presentation Tuesday from Mike Folio, legal director for Disability Rights West Virginia, about issues his organization has uncovered at the William R. Sharpe Jr. Hospital in Weston. Tuesday was the last day of two-day legislative interim meetings that began Monday.

Since the mid-1970s, DRWV has been authorized by Congress as the state’s Protection and Advocacy System agency that provides third-party monitoring of state agencies that serve the disabled. DRWV is a nonprofit advocacy organization that serves as a watchdog for people with intellectual and physical disabilities.

“Under federal law, we have the duty, not just the right, to enter into facilities and monitor facilities to determine compliance with regulatory standards with the law,” Folio said.

In fiscal year 2022, 25% of DRWV’s monitorings occurred at Sharpe Hospital and Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital in Huntington, two psychiatric hospitals managed by DHHR. Folio said DRWV conducted more than 80 visits and spent more than 183 hours at these hospitals.

photo by: Photo by Steven Allen Adams

Mike Folio, legal director for Disability Rights West Virginia, is sworn in before the Joint Committee on Health Tuesday.

Both hospitals serve patients with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD), but while Bateman Hospital was serving the needs of its IDD patients, Folio said Sharpe is not in compliance with state and federal requirements.

Folio and other DRWV staff were in Weston last week meeting with employees of Sharpe. Those informants said Sharpe employees were told not to talk to DRWV staff. An email provided by DRWV and sent Sept. 7 by Shevona Lusk, the chief operating officer for DHHR’s Office of Health Facilities, also told staff not to provide information to DRWV until vetted by staff attorneys.

“If you receive a request from Disability Rights of West Virginia requesting information, don’t provide a response,” Lusk wrote. “You need to send the request to Secretary Couch, April Robertson (DHHR general counsel) and Allen Campbell (general counsel for the state Health Care Authority) to review.”

“The more we dig into this, the more we see a pattern, a practice, a custom, a habit of concealing information, withholding information, trying to mischaracterize information,” Folio said. “I’m not saying they’re telling all employees to do this, but you have a relative senior nurse telling you they can’t give you information when we’re there asking about staffing. That’s a significant problem. That’s not how the system is supposed to operate. That violates federal law.”

According to Folio, about 88 IDD patients are institutionalized in DHHR facilities at an estimated cost of $20 million, or $310,000 per patient per year.

“For the amount of money that DHHR is spending to warehouse IDD patients, we could buy roughly 150 homes,” Folio said. “There’s just mismanagement of resources. There’s a lack of oversight. It raises the question: why are these patients institutionalized and not placed in the community?”

Folio said that DRWV will send a letter to DHHR to preserve all documents and electronic communications, accusing officials of showing preferential treatment to state-operated facilities. DRWV has been in contact with the Justice Department regarding its allegations and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights said in a Nov. 14 letter to DRWV that it will open an investigation into DHHR based on complaints that DRWV submitted.

West Virginia once managed a home for IDD patients, but the Colin Anderson Center in St. Marys closed in 1998. The state replaced the Colin Anderson Center with the Title IX IDD Waiver program, which allowed these individuals to remain with family members instead of being placed in institutions. The program once had a wait list, but the state fully funded the program in 2020.

“The state has broken its promise with the IDD patients,” Folio said. “The ghost of Colin Anderson has been resurrected.”

The IDD Waiver program requires that once a provider takes on an IDD patient, the provider can’t simply end that service without a discharge or transfer plan. But Folio said that providers are dumping patients off at Sharpe by voluntary or involuntary commitment, with those providers continuing to receive funding from the IDD Waiver program.

“The waiver manual is clear. Once you accept the football, you’ve got to keep running with it,” Folio said. “You can’t go to the sideline, which is what many of these providers are doing. Yet, they are continuing to accept compensation for services they are not providing.”

Folio also said that some geriatric patients are also being placed at Sharpe. According to DRWV, there are 20 geriatric patients in the state’s two psychiatric hospitals at a cost of $16.9 million, or $310,000 per patient. But Folio said these patients could be placed in other DHHR facilities instead of psychiatric hospitals. Folio said a source has told DRWV that Crouch has directly prevented the placement of these patients.

“They are geriatric patients and have no business being in a psychiatric hospital,” Folio said. “They’re being institutionalized. They should be placed in a nursing home.”

According to reporting by West Virginia Public Broadcasting on Nov. 3, DRWV alerted lawmakers to alleged abuse of patients at Sharpe Hospital. Accusations included physical and verbal abuse of patients and neglect. DRWV also accused DHHR of failing to provide court-ordered updates to the organization.

In a November legislative interim meeting, Crouch accused Folio, a former general counsel for DHHR’s Office of Health Facilities, of harassment over frequent requests for information.

“I know the temperature is high with DHHR and DRWV,” Folio said. “I want to make it very clear at this point right now we are not here as an adversary of DHHR. We are here as an ally of the disabled people who have no voice whose voice has been silenced who have been locked up in institutions.”

“These are not isolated issues,” Folio said. “These are systemic problems, and it needs to stop.”

“That was a lot to take in,” Crouch said, taking the podium later during Tuesday’s meeting to rebut Folio’s allegations.

“Mr. Folio says they are not adversarial with DHHR, then he goes on to criticize every aspect of what Sharpe Hospital does,” Crouch said. “Then he gets personal to our CEO and myself. That was an attack on DHHR. That wasn’t advocating for individuals who have disabilities.”

Crouch disputed Folio’s allegations about keeping IDD patients at Sharpe against their will. Crouch said every patient admitted to Sharpe is there by court order and are either a danger to themselves or others. Crouch said there are overcrowding issues, but the state has surge plans to divert other patients to other DHHR facilities and cannot refuse to take a patient.

“Sharpe Hospital is a difficult place to work,” Crouch said. “When there are issues, they are investigated. This is one of the most regulated industries in the country short of nuclear power. There are no secrets here. It’s not perfect, but we take good care of folks. The implication that we’re covering things up or not doing what we’re supposed to do is wrong.”

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