Child Psych Unit Fires 29 for Sexual Abuse

[JBeukema]

This is outrageous. A hospital investigation into a sexual assault charge of a minor in its psychiatric unit apparently revealed such gross widespread abuse that 29 staff were fired…you read that right, 29 staff. Yet there is no disclosure of what the hospital investigation uncovered. How is THAT possible? They just get to fire their entire staff and not disclose what they found? Was a minor sexually assaulted? Were a number of children assaulted? Why are there no criminal charges? What prompted the firing of 29 employees and why is the state not demanding full disclosure to the public considering that this is a child psychiatric unit?

Read the story here

 

[Sunshine]

This is an interesting story. I have to wonder if, and how, they proved that the child had been sexually abused, and what the abuse consisted of. I have known two hospital staff members who, when they tried to actually work with kids on the unit and provide some expectations of improvement, were accused of sexual abuse. In one instance, the child threatened two staff nurses while she was in the hospital. When she got home, she did exactly as she had promised. The mother called up and told the nurses that she didn't believe a word of it.

In this article the entire staff was not fired for abuse. Most were fired for 'patient safety concerns.' This could mean many different things. I have been a Director of Nursing, and can pretty much give you a laundry list of patient safety issues. The simplest being no patient assignment made. Some places, especially in psychiatry, like to take the old 'everyone is responsible' tact. If there is no patient assignment made of each individual patient to an individual staff person, then in reality no one is responsible. I would offer to speculate that may have been the type of situation that occurred here. When no one is in charge and no one has an assignment, then no one is going to take the initiative to make the place run properly.

Third, but not last, it should not escape your attention that this was a Catholic hospital, and we have seen a culture of child sexual abuse by caregivers in Catholic institutions repeatedly over the last number of years. It could be something as simple as a cover up by the other workers.

HIPAA laws prohibit the facility from discussing the patient. Even if charges are filed, you may never know who the victim is because the person is a minor and minors are often cloaked in secrecy. Unless criminal charges (which are public record) are filed on all the staff, then the other employees cannot be discussed in the media either.

I have to question why ANY facility would include a child psychiatric unit. There's no money in it any more, and there is ALWAYS the possibility of this kind of allegation either true or fabricated.