Doing right by our most vulnerable citizens

I recently watched the Olivia de Haviland classic The Snake Pit, a 1948 film that was groundbreaking depiction of mental health institutions. In the film,  huge day rooms are filled with babbling, confused people. Their rooms are little more than small cells with a bed and dresser, and curt, overwhelmed nurses are brutal in their interactions with patients.

But after reading The Journal-Sentinel series on the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex this past week, The Snake Pit seems like a walk in the park.

The mental health complex houses the sickest and most vulnerable in our community —  people suffering from severe mental illness and disabilities. They are often harmful to themselves and others and in need of intense supervision paid for by the taxpayers.

But instead of being a safe, comforting environment where patients can get well or at least maintain some semblance of self, the complex is the seventh ring of hell for these patients, abandoned by those who were put in place to keep them safe and well.

There have been warning signs for many years. I personally watched a neighbor boy caught in the revolving door at the complex. He would hurt himself or a sibling, go to the hospital and be back home within 45 days. His parents were unable to afford private care and after too many stays with no improvement, sadly he committed suicide.

Four years ago, another family faced the horror of a broken mental health program when their daughter starved to death while at the complex. An investigation found the woman was allowed to leave the complex alone after being diagnosed as “paranoid, disoriented and delusional” and refused to eat or drink for up to four weeks while in the complex.

The case doctor, Karl Strelnick — who had previously given up his license after having sex with patients — was not fired or disciplined after the death. Instead, he was moved to a different ward in the complex.

Earlier this year, another patient suffered trauma while in the hospital. The severely mentally ill woman was raped by another patient with a history of predatory attacks on both males and females. Strelnick was also in charge of this patient and he failed to tell her guardians that the rape led to a pregnancy. Her child is now in foster care and may suffer effects from the psychiatric drugs the mother took during the first two trimesters of the pregnancy.

Many of the details of this recent case came to light following a closed meeting of a Health and Human Services subcommittee. Supervisor Lynn DeBruin released a letter detailing the closed session meeting with complex administrator John Chianelli.

DeBruin said Chianelli suggested that housing dangerous male patients in the same wards as females was acceptable even if it led to some sexual violence against women. He said that was preferable to violence in an all-male ward. In July, a full report was released explaining the practice of mixed-gender housing.

DeBruin’s colleagues were outraged that she blew the whistle, breaking the veil of secrecy between the publicly-funded hospital staff and administrators and the taxpayers footing the bills.

As a government reporter, I have seen public officials find the smallest reason to use the closed meeting clause. The mere mention of a public employee’s name is enough to make politicians scurry behind the closed door. The county board has said this meeting between the committee and Chianelli was closed due to the possibility of a lawsuit.

In response, the board voted to censure DeBruin, not clean up the mess in Wauwatosa. Not until the Journal Sentinel blew the doors open this past week.

Now that the crap has hit the fan and we have again been made aware that Chianelli has no medical or psychiatric experience, that Skrelnick is a bad doctor and that nurses and aids at the hospital failed to follow basic care guidelines, the county board and Scott Walker have moved to act.

This week Walker demoted Chianelli to deputy director of the county’s Disability Services Division. After all of his bungling as the head of the mental health complex Chianelli should have been fired, not moved within the system.

County Health and Human Services officials moved towards firing Strelnick on Thursday. He has been suspended without pay, prior to a hearing before the county’s personnel committee. Let’s hope the firing goes through and the State Medical Board takes away this guy’s license permanently.

And after years of battles between the County Board and Walker over the actual complex building, the board came up with 12 votes (and a possible 13^th veto-proof vote) to move forward with building a new mental health facility to meet the safety and care needs of patients in the 21^st century.

While Walker and the county board are finally waking up, there is one last thing the board needs to do – reverse the censure on DeBruin. Without her courage to buck her colleagues and shine the light on the problems at the Mental Health Complex, we as taxpayers would still be in the dark and paying for inadequate care and oversight of our most vulnerable citizens.