Abuse at Ingleside Hospital
Note from Kathi. When I received this letter from Edward Haney, I had no idea he was writing about Ingleside Hospital. You can imagine our astonishment when he found my article about abuse at Ingleside Hospital AFTER he wrote this letter to me. That story in liked on the made site for Ingleside Hospital - Here
Ingleside Hospital
From Edward Haney
Kathi, I first of all wanted to thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I really appreciate it. I actually ran into your website by accident by doing a Google search. I am glad I did though because I notice that you have an outstanding knowledge base and you are going to be able to assist me when I have questions and believe me when it comes to Psych, I have a ton of them.
I just moved to Pennsylvania in May of this year where I am originally from, but I lived in the Los Angeles area before about 5 years. I am a RN in Psych and I have come to the realization that the field is need of some serious changes. I had an experience happen to me and I wanted to share it with you and see what you thought.
I started a job in April of this year at a Psych facility in LA County. The facility had just got out of bankruptcy like a week before I started. On my first day of orientation, I had to document in the chart for a young man in his early 20's. He had got admitted during the previous night and he was sleeping during the morning, so I read his chart to get some info. I read his 5150 that was written by police. Police are known to write poor holds. This is probably because they aren't qualified to write them with their minimal knowledge of our field. I was designated by Los Angeles County to write holds, so I think I know how to determine when one is poorly written.
This young man's 5150 was not appropriate. He was admitted for danger to others and there was no criteria for that. The police wrote that the man got into an argument with his Father at home. No threats were made by him. There was no physical altercation at all. I thought that if we threw everyone in the hospital for arguing at home, I would have been admitted a long time ago. I decided to do a face to face evaluation on the young man to see what the deal was. His story totally lined up with what the Police wrote on the 5150. He said he got into an argument with his Father and that was it. He didn't feel he needed to be at the hospital and he wanted me to help him get discharged.
I immediately took my case to the charge nurse on the unit. I told her the Police wrote a poor 5150 and the patient didn't need to be there and he was requesting to leave. The charge nurse told me not to worry about it and the Psychiatrist would dress it up to make it look like he needed to be there. That shocked me, so I just told the young man to tell his Doctor that he wanted to leave when he came in. I am not sure what was said, but this young man was not discharged and he was disappointed. I went home for the day at 330pm.
The following morning, I was approached by a nurse that works in the Utilization Review Dept. She told me she reviewed my charting on the young man from the day before and it was not appropriate because it was not negative. She said the hospital required us to chart only negative things or they would not get paid by insurance companies. I told her I watched that patient for 8 hours and there was nothing to chart that was negative. She said then I needed to make something up. She said she knew it was political, but they way nurses charted on patients reflected on the amount of hours that you got to work there. She said the hospital loved the nurses that helped them get paid by insurance companies. I understand that it's a business, but there is no way in hell I am making up stuff on anyone.
Kathi, I lasted 3 days on orientation and I realized that I was not going to be able to work there, so I quit. I watched the RNs there for 3 days. It was very hectic there and the nurses didn't have time to leave the nursing station. There were 30 patients on that unit. They weren't doing face to face evaluations on the patients, yet they were charting on them. A male RN told me that if you didn't have time, they would just copy what the nurses wrote on the previous day. I knew that this place was totally unethical and I couldn't look at my self in the mirror and continue to work there.
I got online and reported the facility to the LA County Sheriffs Dept for MEDI-CAL fraud since a majority of their patients were on MEDI-CAL or MEDI-CARE. I eventually received a call from them and they asked me a few questions and said they would look into it. I never heard what was the end result of that.
In September, I put a complaint in through the California Department of Mental Health. I received an email from them like 2 weeks ago and they told me they found my complaints to be very serious. They forwarded my info to people in LA County. I just received a phone call from a woman from LA County last evening. Kathi, I might have been on the phone with her for 5 minutes. Not much was said. She said the hospital had a history of alot of complaints, but they were hard to catch. I felt she was non-chalant about it. She asked if I had a name for the young man. I don't and I probably wouldn't have given it because of HIPAA and patient confidentiality. I didn't want to walk away from this and end up getting fined. She told me that advocates are always going to the facility for hearings, so she'll inform them and have them look into it. Kathi, I got the feeling that nothing is going to happen because she said it's hard for them to catch people. I would think they could have some RN go under cover as an employee or something. Maybe someone going in as a patient.
Kathi, is there anything else I can do? I thought maybe calling a show like 20/20 or Dateline to see if they could investigate. I am sure Geraldo Rivera could expose these people. Let me know what you think.
Edward Haney