Politics

Choate director replaced after abuse claims at Illinois facility

Published

2 years ago

August 16, 2023

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This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Capitol News Illinois.ANNA, Ill. — State officials this week named a new leader of Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center amid a drumbeat of criticism and investigations into abuse and poor care at the southern Illinois facility.Bryant Davis, who served as Choate’s top administrator since 2014, has been replaced by Stephany Hoehner, who has worked as a project manager at the facility since March, according to an email to staff on Monday obtained by reporters.In March, Illinois Department of Human Services Secretary Grace Hou unveiled a plan to move more than half of Choate’s 225 residents with developmental disabilities out within three years and improve safety at the center for those who remained. She also announced that the state would undertake a review of the best use for the facility. At the time, Hou told reporters that she decided to keep the facility leaders in place during the transition for continuity because they’ve known many of the patients and their guardians for years.The department’s about-face on Choate’s top leader follows months of reporting on poor conditions at the facility by Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises Midwest and ProPublica. And it comes on the heels of a sweeping new report from Equip for Equality, the state’s federally designated advocacy and protection agency for people with developmental disabilities.After months of monitoring the facility at IDHS’ request, the nonprofit made recommendations that drew a hard line: Regardless of who is in charge, “no individuals with developmental disabilities should remain at Choate.”Equip for Equality’s report, titled “Why No One Should be Left Behind,” detailed ongoing, serious lapses in care and recommended that the remaining residents with developmental disabilities who live there be moved out.Equip for Equality also reported that its site visits between October and July found that little has changed for the residents of the facility, despite the department’s reforms. Choate patients told the monitors that they continued to feel unsafe. They reported numerous serious abuse allegations, and said many instances of abuse go unreported because the staff has a history of taking away patients’ privileges as retaliation.Patients told Equip for Equality monitors that they’ve been slapped, punched, choked and threatened as punishment at Choate. In late 2022, a patient said an employee slapped her after she reported that person for abuse. She feels “threatened and scared” and cries everyday, the report stated. She told the monitor, “It hurts my heart to be here.”

“It hurts my heart to be here.”

A Choate patient’s testimony to Equip for Equality monitors

The facility has also failed to ensure residents received the care they needed, the report said, leading to instances of self-harm such as an incident in September where a patient tore off all 10 of their toenails.Keeping people with developmental disabilities at Choate is “antithetical to their well-being and the reason for their placement” because they are subjected to abuse and neglect, and are not receiving the intensive treatment they need to transition out, the report said.Residents frequently felt “bored” and had few opportunities to engage in meaningful activities such as developing work and life skills, the report said. The monitors also observed that residents spent most of their days watching television, sleeping or doing arts and crafts.Further, residents were subjected to unnecessary restraints and verbal abuse. These safety issues and failures of care were not isolated to the residents whom state officials have prioritized for relocation, the report said.The report cited the case of a nurse who, according to IDHS’ inspector general, failed to follow procedures when she ordered a patient into restraints. The nurse told an investigator with the IDHS Office of the Inspector General, the agency’s watchdog, that the patient became angry after she did not immediately answer a question about his medication and he pushed a medicine cart at her, threw a water bottle and tried to attack her. The patient was escorted to his room, then the nurse ordered restraints.The OIG found she failed to assess the patient’s mental status at the time of the order as required by IDHS policy. At least three technicians and a lead worker told an OIG investigator that the patient was calm at the time a nurse ordered the restraints, though other workers gave conflicting accounts. The nurse was reassigned during the 13-month investigation.“In the end, it not only appears that the restraints were used in a retaliatory manner, but the whole incident could have been avoided if the nurse had respected his right to ask questions about his medication,” the report stated.Capitol News Illinois reporters discovered this nurse applied for and received a supervisory position in the midst of that ongoing investigation. Eight months after taking that job, the OIG substantiated the neglect claim against the nurse in the restraint case.In her request for reconsideration of the finding, the nurse denied any wrongdoing. That request for reconsideration was denied.IDHS said in a statement that it imposed “administrative consequences” on the nurse after the completion of the OIG investigation. She remains a nursing supervisor at Choate.The report also faulted administrators for not taking timely and robust action to address problems, and said they have “failed to demonstrate the ability to right the ship and keep individuals safe.” That finding echoed a June OIG report, which said leadership had failed to hold employees accountable and accepted “substandard work performance.” That same month, the Illinois Department of Public Health found filthy conditions in the units, including peeling paint, feces in the shower and on a patient’s bedding, and dried tobacco spittle covering a clock radio

Whitney Curtis

ProPublicaChoate Mental Health and Developmental Center, in southern Illinois; rural Union County, in March 2023.

In July, the news organizations documented ongoing problems under current leaders at Choate despite IDHS’ reform promises.Davis began at Choate as a social worker in 2000. He became facility director in 2014, responsible for staffing decisions, employee evaluations, responding to critical incidents and discipline for both the mental health and developmental disability divisions at Choate, according to job descriptions. Davis received an annual salary of $133,000. He declined to comment through an IDHS spokesperson.Davis, along with Assistant Facility Director Teresa Smith and Quality Assurance Manager Gary Goins, faced charges of official misconduct last year for allegedly interfering with a patient abuse investigation. The charges against the three were later dropped by the prosecutor.Smith and Goins will remain in their current positions. They also declined to comment through an IDHS spokesperson.In response to a question about Davis’ future with the agency, IDHS said in an email: “Davis will no longer work at Choate following a one-month transition period. At this time, we are not able to share anything beyond that.”But Equip for Equality, in its report, cautioned that changing leadership isn’t enough to fix conditions for the residents with developmental disabilities at Choate. It found deeper cultural problems at the facility have taken root over several decades. Appointing new leadership “could serve as a distraction that only delays the timely transition of all individuals with developmental disabilities away from Choate,” according to the report. The report did not address the much smaller state-run psychiatric hospital that is also on the grounds of the 229-acre campus.Equip for Equality has had monitors stationed at Choate on and off since 2021. IDHS officials requested their assessment of Choate on the heels of a rash of arrests of employees on felony charges alleging abuse and cover-ups. Since then, the monitors have logged more than 2,000 hours on the facility’s grounds.Last summer, in part based on Equip for Equality’s review, IDHS implemented a series of care and safety reforms. Those included adding surveillance cameras to public areas, beefing up security and improving services for residents who needed therapy to address trauma they’d experienced and for those who wanted help transitioning from the institution and into a community home.“Despite the state’s ongoing investments in this institution and the high level of scrutiny it has been under since early 2021,” Equip for Equality’s report said, it is clear that “an influx of more resources will not fix the multiple and serious problems at Choate.”This is the second comprehensive report on poor conditions at Choate from Equip for Equality in the past two decades. It was strikingly similar to the organization’s 2005 monitoring report detailing abuse and poor care, which was followed by a Department of Justice investigation two years later.“Here we are 20 years later with the same problems,” said Stacey Aschemann, vice president of Equip for Equality’s monitoring unit.IDHS spokesperson Rachel Otwell said in a statement that the agency is evaluating Equip for Equality’s report, alongside other recent reports from the OIG and the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, which provided recommendations to repurpose Choate and address safety and staffing issues.“Ultimately, the department wants to serve patients and residents in the best possible way, retain excellent staff, and strengthen the Choate campus to serve the public interest,” she said.At present, the department is committed to “the careful transition of the 123 residents” previously identified to be moved by state officials. “It is critical to focus on these early moves to ensure they are smooth and successful for the long term.”Since the plan was announced in early March, 19 residents have moved out of Choate. About half of those moved to other developmental centers, which have also been linked to cases of abuse and neglect.

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Poll: Support for Missouri abortion rights amendment growing

Published

10 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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A proposed constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in Missouri received support from more than half of respondents in a new poll from St. Louis University and YouGov.That’s a boost from a poll earlier this year, which could mean what’s known as Amendment 3 is in a solid position to pass in November.SLU/YouGov’s poll of 900 likely Missouri voters from Aug. 8-16 found that 52% of respondents would vote for Amendment 3, which would place constitutional protections for abortion up to fetal viability. Thirty-four percent would vote against the measure, while 14% aren’t sure.By comparison, the SLU/YouGov poll from February found that 44% of voters would back the abortion legalization amendment.St. Louis University political science professor Steven Rogers said 32% of Republicans and 53% of independents would vote for the amendment. That’s in addition to nearly 80% of Democratic respondents who would approve the measure. In the previous poll, 24% of Republicans supported the amendment.Rogers noted that neither Amendment 3 nor a separate ballot item raising the state’s minimum wage is helping Democratic candidates. GOP contenders for U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, treasurer and secretary of state all hold comfortable leads.“We are seeing this kind of crossover voting, a little bit, where there are voters who are basically saying, ‘I am going to the polls and I’m going to support a Republican candidate, but I’m also going to go to the polls and then I’m also going to try to expand abortion access and then raise the minimum wage,’” Rogers said.Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Kehoe has a 51%-41% lead over Democrat Crystal Quade. And U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is leading Democrat Lucas Kunce by 53% to 42%. Some GOP candidates for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer have even larger leads over their Democratic rivals.

Brian Munoz

St. Louis Public RadioHundreds of demonstrators pack into a parking lot at Planned Parenthood of St. Louis and Southwest Missouri on June 24, 2022, during a demonstration following the Supreme Court’s reversal of a case that guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion.

One of the biggest challenges for foes of Amendment 3 could be financial.Typically, Missouri ballot initiatives with well-funded and well-organized campaigns have a better chance of passing — especially if the opposition is underfunded and disorganized. Since the end of July, the campaign committee formed to pass Amendment 3 received more than $3 million in donations of $5,000 or more.That money could be used for television advertisements to improve the proposal’s standing further, Rogers said, as well as point out that Missouri’s current abortion ban doesn’t allow the procedure in the case of rape or incest.“Meanwhile, the anti side won’t have those resources to kind of try to make that counter argument as strongly, and they don’t have public opinion as strongly on their side,” Rogers said.There is precedent of a well-funded initiative almost failing due to opposition from socially conservative voters.In 2006, a measure providing constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research nearly failed — even though a campaign committee aimed at passing it had a commanding financial advantage.Former state Sen. Bob Onder was part of the opposition campaign to that measure. He said earlier this month it is possible to create a similar dynamic in 2024 against Amendment 3, if social conservatives who oppose abortion rights can band together.“This is not about reproductive rights or care for miscarriages or IVF or anything else,” said Onder, the GOP nominee for Missouri’s 3rd Congressional District seat. “Missourians will learn that out-of-state special interests and dark money from out of state is lying to them and they will reject this amendment.”Quade said earlier this month that Missourians of all political ideologies are ready to roll back the state’s abortion ban.“Regardless of political party, we hear from folks who are tired of politicians being in their doctor’s offices,” Quade said. “They want politicians to mind their own business. So this is going to excite folks all across the political spectrum.”

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Democrat Mark Osmack makes his case for Missouri treasurer

Published

10 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Mark Osmack has been out of the electoral fray for awhile, but he never completely abandoned his passion for Missouri politics.Osmack, a Valley Park native and U.S. Army veteran, previously ran for Missouri’s 2nd Congressional District seat and for state Senate. Now he’s the Democratic nominee for state treasurer after receiving a phone call from Missouri Democratic Party Chairman Russ Carnahan asking him to run.“There’s a lot of decision making and processing and evaluation that goes into it, which is something I am very passionate and interested in,” Osmack said this week on an episode of Politically Speaking.Osmack is squaring off against state Treasurer Vivek Malek, who was able to easily win a crowded GOP primary against several veteran lawmakers including House Budget Chairman Cody Smith and state Sen. Andrew Koenig.While Malek was able to attract big donations to his political action committee and pour his own money into the campaign, Osmack isn’t worried that he won’t be able to compete in November. Since Malek was appointed to his post, Osmack contends he hasn’t proven that he’s a formidable opponent in a general election.“His actions and his decision making so far in his roughly two year tenure in that office have been questionable,” Osmack said.Among other things, Osmack was critical of Malek for placing unclaimed property notices on video gaming machines which are usually found in gas stations or convenience stores. The legality of the machines has been questioned for some time.As Malek explained on his own episode of Politically Speaking, he wanted to make sure the unclaimed property program was as widely advertised as possible. But he acknowledged it was a mistake to put the decals close to the machines and ultimately decided to remove them.Osmack said: “This doesn’t even pass the common sense sniff test of, ‘Hey, should I put state stickers claiming you might have a billion dollars on a gambling machine that is not registered with the state of Missouri?’ If we’re gonna give kudos for him acknowledging the wrong thing, it never should have been done in the first place.”Osmack’s platform includes supporting programs providing school meals using Missouri agriculture products and making child care more accessible for the working class.He said the fact that Missouri has such a large surplus shows that it’s possible to create programs to make child care within reach for parents.“It is quite audacious for [Republicans] to brag about $8 billion, with a B, dollars in state surplus, while we offer next to no social services to include pre-K, daycare, or child care,” Osmack said.Here’s are some other topics Osmack discussed on the show:How he would handle managing the state’s pension systems and approving low-income housing tax credits. The state treasurer’s office is on boards overseeing both of those programs.Malek’s decision to cut off investments from Chinese companies. Osmack said that Missouri needs to be cautious about abandoning China as a business partner, especially since they’re a major consumer of the state’s agriculture products. “There’s a way to make this work where we are not supporting communist nations to the detriment of the United States or our allies, while also maintaining strong economic ties that benefit Missouri farmers,” he said.What it was like to witness the skirmish at the Missouri State Fair between U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley and Democratic challenger Lucas Kunce.Whether Kunce can get the support of influential groups like the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which often channels money and staff to states with competitive Senate elections.

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As Illinois receives praise for its cannabis equity efforts, stakeholders work on system’s flaws

Published

10 months ago

August 29, 2024

Natural Bridge

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Medical marijuana patients can now purchase cannabis grown by small businesses as part of their allotment, Illinois’ top cannabis regulator said, but smaller, newly licensed cannabis growers are still seeking greater access to the state’s medical marijuana customers.Illinois legalized medicinal marijuana beginning in 2014, then legalized it for recreational use in 2020. While the 2020 law legalized cannabis use for any adult age 21 or older, it did not expand licensing for medical dispensaries.Patients can purchase marijuana as part of the medical cannabis program at dual-purpose dispensaries, which are licensed to serve both medical and recreational customers. But dual-purpose dispensaries are greatly outnumbered by dispensaries only licensed to sell recreationally, and there are no medical-only dispensaries in the state.As another part of the adult-use legalization law, lawmakers created a “craft grow” license category that was designed to give more opportunities to Illinoisans hoping to legally grow and sell marijuana. The smaller-scale grow operations were part of the 2020 law’s efforts to diversify the cannabis industry in Illinois.Prior to that, all cultivation centers in Illinois were large-scale operations dominated by large multi-state operators. The existing cultivators, mostly in operation since 2014, were allowed to grow recreational cannabis beginning in 2019.Until recently, dual-purpose dispensaries have been unsure as to whether craft-grown products, made by social equity licensees — those who have lived in a disproportionately impacted area or have been historically impacted by the war on drugs — can be sold medicinally as part of a patient’s medical allotment.Erin Johnson, the state’s cannabis regulation oversight officer, told Capitol News Illinois last month that her office has “been telling dispensaries, as they have been asking us” they can now sell craft-grown products to medical patients.“There was just a track and trace issue on our end, but never anything statutorily,” she said.

Dilpreet Raju

Capitol News IllinoisThe graphic shows how cannabis grown in Illinois gets from cultivation centers to customers.

No notice has been posted, but Johnson’s verbal guidance comes almost two years after the first craft grow business went online in Illinois.It allows roughly 150,000 medical patients, who dispensary owners say are the most consistent purchasers of marijuana, to buy products made by social equity businesses without paying recreational taxes. However — even as more dispensaries open — the number available to medical patients has not increased since 2018, something the Cannabis Regulation Oversight Office “desperately” wants to see changed. Johnson said Illinois is a limited license state, meaning “there are caps on everything” to help control the relatively new market.Berwyn Thompkins, who operates two cannabis businesses, said the rules limited options for patients and small businesses.“It’s about access,” Thompkins said. “Why wouldn’t we want all the patients — which the (adult-use) program was initially built around — why wouldn’t we want them to have access? They should have access to any dispensary.”Customers with a medical marijuana card pay a 1% tax on all marijuana products, whereas recreational customers pay retail taxes between roughly 20 and 40% on a given cannabis product, when accounting for local taxes.While Illinois has received praise for its equity-focused cannabis law, including through an independent study that showed more people of color own cannabis licenses than in any other state, some industry operators say they’ve experienced many unnecessary hurdles getting their businesses up and running.The state, in fact, announced last month that it had opened its 100th social equity dispensary.But Steve Olson, purchasing manager at a pair of dispensaries (including one dual-purpose dispensary) near Rockford, said small specialty license holders have been left in the lurch since the first craft grower opened in October 2022.“You would think that this would be something they’re (the government) trying to help out these social equity companies with, but they’re putting handcuffs on them in so many different spots,” he said. “One of them being this medical thing.”Olson said he contacted state agencies, including the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, months ago about whether craft products can be sold to medical patients at their retail tax rate, but only heard one response: “They all say it was an oversight.”This potentially hurt social equity companies because they sell wholesale to dispensaries and may have been missing out on a consistent customer base through those medical dispensaries.Olson said the state’s attempts to provide licensees with a path to a successful business over the years, such as with corrective lotteries that granted more social equity licenses, have come up short.“It’s like they almost set up the social equity thing to fail so the big guys could come in and swoop up all these licenses,” Olson said. “I hate to feel like that but, if you look at it, it’s pretty black and white.”Olson said craft companies benefit from any type of retail sale.“If we sell it to medical patients or not, it’s a matter of, ‘Are we collecting the proper taxes?’ That’s all it is,” he said.State revenue from cannabis taxes, licensing costs and other fees goes into the Cannabis Regulation Fund, which is used to fund a host of programs, including cannabis offense expungement, the general revenue fund, and the R3 campaign aiming to uplift disinvested communities.For fiscal year 2024, nearly $256 million was paid out from Cannabis Regulation Fund for related initiatives, which includes almost $89 million transferred to the state’s general revenue fund and more than $20 million distributed to local governments, according to the Illinois Department of Revenue.Medical access still limitedThe state’s 55 medical dispensaries that predate the 2020 legalization law, mostly owned by publicly traded multistate operators that had been operating in Illinois since 2014 under the state’s medical marijuana program, were automatically granted a right to licenses to sell recreationally in January 2020. That gave them a dual-purpose license that no new entrants into the market can receive under current law.Since expanding their clientele in 2020, Illinois dispensaries have sold more than $6 billion worth of cannabis products through recreational transactions alone.Nearly two-thirds of dispensaries licensed to sell to medical patients are in the northeast counties of Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake and Will. Dual-purpose dispensaries only represent about 20 percent of the state’s dispensaries.While the state began offering recreational dispensary licenses since the adult-use legalization law passed, it has not granted a new medical dispensary license since 2018. That has allowed the established players to continue to corner the market on the state’s nearly 150,000 medical marijuana patients.But social equity licensees and advocates say there are more ways to level the playing field, including expanding access to medical sales.Johnson, who became the state’s top cannabis regulator in late 2022, expressed hope for movement during the fall veto session on House Bill 2911, which would expand medical access to all Illinois dispensaries.“We would like every single dispensary in Illinois to be able to serve medical patients,” Johnson said. “It’s something that medical patients have been asking for, for years.”Johnson said the bill would benefit patients and small businesses.“It’s something we desperately want to happen as a state system, because we want to make sure that medical patients are able to easily access what they need,” she said. “We also think it’s good for our social equity dispensaries, as they’re opening, to be able to serve medical patients.”Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, who was the first statewide project coordinator for Illinois’ medical cannabis program prior to joining the legislature, wrote in an email to Capitol News Illinois that the state needs to be doing more for its patients.“Illinois is failing the state’s 150,000 medical cannabis patients with debilitating conditions. Too many are still denied the patient protections they deserve, including access to their medicine,” Morgan wrote, adding he would continue to work with stakeholders on further legislation.Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.

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