NEWS, COMMENTARY, AND ARTS BY PSYCHIATRIC SURVIVORS, MENTAL HEALTH PEERS, AND OUR FAMILIES
VOL. XXXIII NO. 3
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FROM THE HILLS OF VERMONT
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SINCE 1985
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WINTER 2018
Hospital Stands By Locked Bathrooms Retreat Denies Receiving Multiple Patient Complaints By ANNE DONAHUE Counterpoint BRATTLEBORO – The Brattleboro Retreat adopted a new policy this year to lock all bathrooms on inpatient units, requiring patients to ask staff for help to access the toilets. The psychiatric hospital’s policy was met with outrage by survivor advocates, who described it as “a serious affront to patient dignity” and filed a complaint with the state, but the hospital’s chief nursing officer, Meghan Baston, said it was a necessary safety measure that was initiated after a patient attempted suicide in February. Baston said that no patients had complained about access being delayed. “That is a blatant lie,” said Kaz DeWolfe, communications coordinator for Vermont Psychiatric Survivors. The complaint filed with the state cited “over 30 written complaints” that the Retreat itself had acknowledged receiving. “There have been multiple grievances from patients who found it dehumanizing and degrading,” DeWolfe said. “They are ‘handing’ bathroom grievances on the units and not filing them or tracking them. They are probably all being thrown away.” In one instance, VPS filed a grievance on behalf of a patient “who lost control of their bladder while waiting for staff to unlock the bathroom,” DeWolfe
said. They said the patient never received a response to the grievance. The state’s Division of Licensing and Protection, which oversees whether hospitals meet standards of care, said it found no regulatory violations related either to the bathroom policy or the attempted suicide when it conducted an unannounced site visit in March. Suzanne Leavitt, the division director, noted that its authority is limited to enforcing “minimum standards” based in regulations set by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Reviewers “did not find any access was restricted” because there were always staff available in the hallways, said Sarah Sherbrooke, RNMS, the nurse surveyor who handled the investigation. Because the purpose was “for monitoring safety of the environment” and hospitals elsewhere in the country had similar policies, it could not be considered a deviation from an accepted practice, she said, even if other better alternatives might exist. Baston said the Retreat was not planning to look into other options itself, and that “this is the set policy.” Mourning Fox, interim commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, said that as soon as he heard about the policy in November, he contacted the administration at the Retreat. While safety is important, “we can’t forgo treating people with respect (Continued on page 4)
Safe Haven: 20 Years of Support
After completing $400,000 worth of renovations, the Another Way peer center in Montpelier celebrated in November with an open house that featured member art. More photos of the art display are on page 14. (Counterpoint Photo: Anne Donahue)
Disability Rights Vermont New Annual Priorities
RANDOLPH – Twenty years ago, a unique collaboration was born here: a home that was run by psychiatric survivors with clinical support by a community mental health agency and family member volunteers. Safe Haven was a federally funded national program for homeless adults struggling with mental health stability. What made it different from the other programs was that the support staff in the residence were hired and supervised by Vermont Psychiatric Survivors, clinicians came from the Clara Martin Center, and other support was provided by NAMI Vermont. It was a time before the term “peer support” was in common use, and despite many other changes over the years, that core piece has remained the same. The
four individuals who operate the home are known as recovery staff, and all identify themselves as having lived experience with a mental illness. Two of the current staff were once guests at Safe Haven. In all, 166 guests have come through the doors of the large, Victorian-style home, staying an average of seven to eight months with a primary goal of finding long-term stable housing. Stable housing, for Alex DeLeon, means that he is still living in the same apartment that he found 14 years ago with the help he received at Safe Haven. He said that for many years, he supported himself through the disability income he received based on his diagnosis of schizophrenia. Five years ago, he heard there was a job opening at (Continued on page 5)
8 The Arts12
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Rethinking Bipolar