Washington state psychiatric hospital called ‘hell’
SEATTLE — Behind tall brick walls and secure windows, hundreds of patients at Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital live in conditions that fail U.S. health and safety standards, while overworked nurses and psychiatrists say they are navigating a system that punishes employees who speak out despite critical staffing shortages.
“They don’t have enough staff to protect patients, or provide them with the bare minimum of care,” said Lisa Bowser, whose mother spent two years at Western State Hospital and suffered dozens of falls and assaults.
“Going there was like going into hell,” said Ms. Bowser, who has sued the state-run facility. “I honestly thought they would kill her before I could get her out.”
U.S. and state regulators for years have found health and safety violations at the 800-bed hospital, ranging from assaults on staff to escapes of dangerous patients, including a man accused of torturing a woman to death.
Even after that 2016 escape, a nursing supervisor told The Associated Press that a patient who had been charged with murder and found not guilty by reason of insanity was placed in a less secure ward and the nurse faced retaliation after reporting the danger to nonviolent patients.
Despite a shakeup in leadership and vows to correct problems, the hospital continually puts patients at risk, according to a recent surprise federal inspection. Some didn’t get oxygen and blood-sugar checks; injuries weren’t properly treated; some were held in restraints too long; and the building remained a fire hazard. Some violations were cited in inspections going back to 2015.
After years of chances, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services last week stripped the hospital in Lakewood of its certification and federal funding, totaling $53 million a year and about 20 percent of its budget.
Gov. Jay Inslee said he wants the state to change how it handles the mentally ill, but thatit’s making inroads.
“We have been on a course correction to turn this ship around and we are continuing on that course of improvement,” the Democrat told AP.
Sharon Struthers was committed to the hospital for depression in 2014 and stayed through 2015, when it failed four federal inspections. During visits, Ms. Bowser said, she began to see bruising all over her mother’s body, which was rarely washed, and she found fungus covering her feet.
“They wouldn’t bathe her,” Ms. Bowser said. “She would tell me that another patient hit her. They would put her in a jumpsuit so she couldn’t go to the bathroom, and the staff made fun of her for wetting herself. She was treated like an animal.”
Ms. Bowser said her mother’s room was covered with garbage, and she began to suffer falls that broke her arm and hip. Her mother also was sexually assaulted on several occasions, Ms. Bowser said, and staffers appeared to condone sexual interactions between patients.
Employees thought a registered sex offender placed on Ms. Struthers’ ward was safe around older patients because he was a “child molester, not adult rapist,” according to an email that licensed mental health counselor Mark Allen sent to hospital officials and that Ms. Bowser’s lawyer acquired.
Mr. Allen said the encounter appeared to be between two consenting adults.
Just because the patient is a registered sex offender “doesn’t mean he can’t develop and have consensual physical/sexual behaviors, as long as the peer is psychiatrically stable, has the ability to make decisions for herself and is not considered ‘vulnerable,’” the email said.
The problem is Ms. Struthers was committed to the hospital because she could not take care of herself, said Ms. Bowser’s attorney, James Beck.
Ms. Struthers died at a different facility in 2016. Ms. Bowser sued Western State Hospital and the state Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the facility, claiming abuse and neglect.
Management also punishes those who challenge decisions, workers said, putting additional strain on the short-staffed facility.
Nursing supervisor Paul Vilja filed a complaint in December after a man who was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the deaths of multiple people was moved from a secure ward into one with limited security that houses patients committed to the hospital because they cannotcare for themselves.
Mr.Vilja has filed a whistleblower complaint, claiming retaliationfor speaking out.
Ms. Bowser said nurses conceded that they couldn’t properly care for her mother because they didn’t have enough staffers. Joseph Wainer, left, a psychiatrist at Western State Hospital, and Paul Vilja, a nursing supervisor, stand near the facility in Lakewood, Wash., in November 2015. Mentally ill patients are forced to live in conditions that don't meet federal health and safety standards, according to officials. Overworked staffers say they must navigate a management system that punishes whistleblowers.