A federal investigation into Connecticut’s only state run mental hospital concludes there are problems with patient safety, care and treatment at Connecticut Valley Hospital.
A Department of Justice report obtained by the Hartford Courant has been released following a 20-month investigation into the Middletown hospital.
The report concludes that suicide risk remains high at CVH and that patients are restrained as a first resort and as a convenience for staff.
The report is critical of communication among staffers. It concludes that one shift doesn’t talk to another about high-risk patients and that treatment practices are often grossly inadequate.
State mental health officials said that the report points out serious deficiencies, but they rejected some of the conclusions, including the portrayal of the way restraints are used, and said the hospital has improved significantly in the past 15 months.
“This report will make great print and it will be startling to people,” Thomas A. Kirk Jr., the state mental health commissioner, told the Courant Tuesday.
Kirk said officials were reaching out to families of patients and the various advisory boards that monitor CVH to let them know about the findings.
“But you can put my word on it: This hospital is safe and patient care and safety is our No. 1 priority,” Kirk said. “This is not the same hospital in August 2007 that it was in June 2006.”
The investigation was conducted under the federal Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act. In the report, the Justice Department does not direct the state to take immediate action, such as freezing patient admissions, but the state could face a lawsuit if it doesn’t take corrective action.
The state has 49 days to formally respond to the Justice Department. Kirk said his staff is working with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office to outline the areas of disagreement and to describe all of the corrective measures that have been put in place or are planned.
The commissioner said that within three weeks the hospital will launch a computerized record-tracking system that will substantially improve patient treatment and communication from shift to shift.
