Federal reports describe basis for termination of Osawatomie State Hospital funding

At Osawatomie State Hospital, a known male sex offender was placed on an all-female hallway.

Security staff did not performing required safety rounds on the night a staff member was raped by patient.

And staff left doors unlocked to bathrooms with fixtures that suicidal patients could hang themselves from.

These are some of the incidents that led to more inspections and eventually the termination of federal funding for patient care at Osawatomie, one of the state’s two mental hospitals.

Federal reports are revealing new details about why federal authorities say the hospital is not complying with federal regulations on meeting the needs of its patients.

Disability and aging services spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said in an email Wednesday the state would review the results of the inspections.

“We are reviewing it, and the summary of findings, and will determine how to respond after that review is complete,” de Rocha said.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services told the state last week that it is not paying for the care of new patients admitted to the state mental hospital after Dec. 21. The state mental hospital in eastern Kansas cares for involuntary admissions from Sedgwick County and other counties. Larned is the other state hospital.

Unless Medicare funding is restored, the state of Kansas will be paying for patient care at Osawatomie.

A November survey found that security staff were not doing mandatory safety rounds on a hallway where a female staff member was raped by a male patient on Oct. 27. The 42-year-old patient, admitted earlier that day, was diagnosed with psychosis and had “a history of multiple attempts to strangle his spouse,” according to CMS documents.

He grabbed the staffer when she was in his room around 8:30 p.m. Two patients walking down the hallway heard the noise and intervened.

“Two patients … saved me. They came before any staff did,” the mental health technician who was raped said in an interview after the incident.

Video logs from that night show a security staffer failed to do required 10-minute safety rounds on several hallways in that part of the hospital, the report says.

The hospital had also yet to do a “root cause analysis for the rape” two nights after the incident.

De Rocha said CMS had accepted a correction plan submitted by the hospital, which included providing workers with a personal alarm button. But, according to an Associated Press report, she said that a follow-up survey found the facility was still out of compliance, but that she had no information on why.

She said another survey was anticipated in January.

The same report also said the hospital left unsupervised bathrooms and shower rooms that have potential anchors for hanging. The feds say that “placed patients with suicidal thoughts at risk for harming themselves.”

A summary finding from a inspection revisit from last week found:

▪ The facility placed a known male sex offender, who had been displaying inappropriate sexual behaviors, on an all-female hallway. That failed to protect female patients, the summary says.

▪ After that patient made a shank from a plastic knife and tried to stab someone in the neck for sitting too close to him, he was transferred to another unit. But he remained on a 60-minute observation check schedule after the attempted stabbing.

▪ One female patient continued harming herself with pens, spoons, knives, safety pins and coins on a near-daily basis.

▪ The facility failed to prevent this female patient from having sex with another patient.

▪ This female patient choked and pulled another patient’s hair.

▪ The same female patient attempted suicide, but remained on a 15-minute observation check schedule after the attempt.

Earlier this year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services required hospital renovations which has limited the number of patients the hospital could care for. The hospital has been replacing fixtures in the ceiling that could be used for hanging by suicidal patients.

The cap on the number of patients has created a mental health waiting list in Sedgwick County and other counties in Osawatomie’s region, which is mainly southern and eastern Kansas.

This story was originally published December 23, 2015 at 6:30 PM with the headline "Federal reports describe basis for termination of Osawatomie State Hospital funding."