© Provided by Washington Examiner President Joe Biden's pick to lead mental health policy at the Department of Health and Human Services oversaw an abuse scandal at a mental health facility under her purview that resulted in multiple arrests and lawsuits.
Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, commissioner of Connecticut's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, faced criticism in her home state after allegations surfaced about patient abuse at Whiting Forensic Hospital, a facility in Middletown that treats mentally ill patients involved in the criminal justice system.
Her department was later accused of withholding details about its internal investigation of the abuse.
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Biden on Thursday nominated Delphin-Rittmon to be assistant secretary for mental health and substance use, a position that will require Senate confirmation.
His choice of Delphin-Rittmon as an assistant secretary at HHS could mark another controversial nomination for the agency. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra faced headwinds from Republicans during his confirmation process over his liberal positions and lack of health experience. And Rachel Levine, HHS assistant secretary, faced scrutiny over her support for chemical castration of children and other hormonal therapies for transgender children.
In 2017, a whistleblower at the Whiting facility reported a long history of abuse of a patient named Bill Shehadi, who had been involuntarily committed in 1995 after a homicide, at the hands of hospital staff.
Hours of videotape from inside Shehadi's room revealed that nurses and staff had physically abused and psychologically tormented the patient, prompting his brother, Al Shehadi, to file a lawsuit and both the state and federal governments to investigate.
Ultimately, 10 staffers were arrested on charges of their conduct and 37 were suspended or fired after an investigation validated the allegations of abuse.
Al Shehadi sued the hospital, Delphin-Rittmon's department, and Delphin-Rittmon personally in 2018 over the abuse.
Shehadi alleged in court filings that staff had subjected his brother to "unrelenting sadistic physical abuse, neglect, exploitation, humiliation and psychological torture." Backed up by video recordings from Shehadi's room, the allegations included that hospital staff regularly hit, kicked, and threw or spit food at the patient on many occasions.
In other instances, a staff member splashed a dirty mop on Shehadi's head, beat him with a TV remote, and rubbed his genitals in the patient's face, according to court documents.
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Al Shehadi argued in the lawsuit that Delphin-Rittmon should be liable for damages in her individual capacity because she, among other hospital and state leaders, "showed a reckless disregard of the just rights and safety" of his brother and ultimately "engaged in wanton, reckless and malicious conduct."
Republican state Sen. Heather Somers, ranking member on the Legislature's public health committee, pushed for a hearing at the time and later helped pursue reforms in the wake of the controversy.
Somers said she has reservations about the Biden administration elevating Delphin-Rittmon in light of the problems that occurred on her watch.
"Mental health is a critical issue for our country that requires innovative thinking, compassion and reliable management," Somers told the Washington Examiner.
"Given her reluctance to take immediate action around the Whiting abuse, her objection to sensible reforms and the continuing questions about the situation at the hospital and her department's management, it would give me pause to have her leading on mental health policy for the nation."
Prior to filing his lawsuit, which appears to be ongoing, Al Shehadi had spoken out at the hearing about what he described as Delphin-Rittmon's attempts to downplay the abuse his brother suffered.
"The commissioner gently tries to frame this as an exception, saying several times, this is not who we are," he said at the public hearing before the state Legislature in November 2017.
"I must respectfully disagree with the commissioner. When more than 40 out of 200 staff are implicated in an abuse scandal, when staff feel free to abuse a patient knowing that there is a camera in his room, it may not be who you want to be, commissioner, but it absolutely is part of who you are."
At that same November 2017 hearing before the state Legislature, Delphin-Rittmon testified that the footage of abuse at Whiting "sickened me and has haunted me ever since."
She described a litany of changes her department had undertaken, such as removing the Whiting director and the hospital's director of nursing, contacting the state police, and implementing round-the-clock monitoring of surveillance video inside the facility, which had not been policy before due to what she described as privacy concerns.
As a result of the scandal, the state separated Whiting administratively from the Connecticut Valley Hospital system, of which it had been a part.
State lawmakers created a task force in June 2018 to consider changes to the state-run psychiatric hospitals.
In October 2019, the chairman of the hospital's advisory board told the task force that Delphin-Rittmon's department had stonewalled the board over the investigation.
The board's chairman said members learned about the abuse scandal from watching a news report and were denied access to information about it by Delphin-Rittmon's department, which he said told the advisory board to file a Freedom of Information Act request if it wanted to learn more.
Problems at the hospitals appear to have persisted.
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An investigation in 2019 by Disability Rights Connecticut, an advocacy group, found that "very significant problems persist" at the Connecticut Valley and Whiting hospitals. Those included hospital staff using restraints on mentally ill patients "as a means of punishment and/or for the convenience of staff," as well as staff overusing powerful sedation medications on patients who became agitated.
And patients testified before the task force in October that conditions remained harsh; for example, some said the facility was infested with roaches and that they didn't have access to hot water for showering.
Delphin-Rittmon did not respond to a request for comment.
Tags: News, Health, HHS, Xavier Becerra, Biden, Biden Administration
Original Author: Sarah Westwood
Original Location: Biden HHS nominee presided over patient abuse scandal