Union blasts OMH, OMRDD service plans PEF to lawmakers: Poor state planning opening door to danger for clients, staff By SHERRY HALBROOK The state is doing a poor job of service planning to meet the needs of some of its most vulnerable citizens because it focuses on dollars, rather than people. And mentally ill and developmentally disabled children could be among the next casualties in a mis-directed system that can turn dangerous. That’s the message PEF Executive Board Members Rich Ensminger and Paul Shea delivered in Buffalo to a joint NYS Assembly committee hearing in October on the state’s longterm plans for services to the state’s mentally ill, mentally retarded, developmentally disabled and substance-abusers. A kind of discount-store mentality has taken over the service-planning process and is producing a system of “patient bumping” and routine mixing of fragile patients with violent criminals, the PEF leaders told lawmakers. The state should put more emphasis on matching services to peoples’ needs, instead of what the state is willing to spend, they said. Closing doors to recovery Shea cited the state Office of Mental Health’s plan to close its children’s psychiatric centers and move the children into facilities for adult patients as a glaring example of poor planning. “We consider this a huge error of judgement and an overt failure of the OMH planning process. We greatly appreciate the strong position the Assembly has taken on this proposal,” Shea said. “Locally, the proposal includes moving children currently housed in the therapeutic setting of West Seneca to the second and third floors of the Strozzi Building at Buffalo Psychiatric Center.” Shea, a registered nurse who has worked 34 years at Buffalo PC, said the proposal ignores the therapeutic needs of both the children and the adult patients. Parents fear their children would be more likely to succeed in running away from the high-rise building in the heart of Buffalo, and that seeing chronically ill adults around them will cause the youngsters “to lose all sense of hope for their own future.” Shea said many of the children already have been traumatized by adults. Efforts to keep the children separated from adult patients in the same building would “require restricting the freedom and movement of both,” he said. Shea said OMH chronically understaffs these centers because it focuses on the number of staff on duty, rather than on their ability to meet the needs of the patients. “Patients are assigned to units based on availability, not need, creating a mix that is difficult to control or treat with severely limited staffing.” The results, he said, “are an increased risk of violence for both patients and staff.” Closing eyes to change Similar dangers are mounting in state programs for the mentally retarded and developmentally disabled, according to Ensminger, a developmental specialist with 27 years of experience at the Western NY Developmental Disabilities Services Office. “The planning process is deficient in preparing for the changing nature of clients,” Ensminger said. “Staff have been trained to meet the needs of multiply disabled individuals with severe and profound developmental impairments and generally predictable behavior patterns.” But now, the system serves increasingly streetwise, violent clients, including sexual predators ordered into treatment by the courts. “They tend to exhibit explosive behavior with violence directed toward staff,” Ensminger said. These clients often try to run away and “are typically streetwise and know how to get and use weapons. They are accustomed to life on the street. Aggression and violence are an everyday part of their lives.” Mixing such clients with severely disabled clients creates serious risks for clients and staff, he said. What’s more, state regulations that were formulated to enhance freedoms for disabled clients trying to achieve confidence and social and living skills now open the door to danger, he said. “It is no doubt better for these individuals to be receiving treatment in a state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities facility, than to be lingering untreated in prison or jail,” Ensminger said. “However, staff must be given the right tools to provide treatment while also providing a safe environment for staff and clients, alike.” The Communicator Home Page