Facility received 1,100 patient complaints in 2008-09, reported 11 patient deaths in 2009
Another person has died while in the custody of the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo (CMHIP), according to the Denver Post: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_15822489. The cause of death of 41-year-old Troy Allen Geske, who died several days ago, will not be known until an autopsy is complete.
His death is being closely followed because of recent revelations of other deaths at the psychiatric facility, including the suicide of Sergio Taylor. An autopsy report indicated 23-year-old Taylor died of asphyxiation in September 2009 after complaining about conditions at the CMHIP. He was found by law enforcement officers under blankets with a plastic bag over his head in a supposedly high-security area of the psychiatric facility. About a month earlier, Taylor and 19 other patients had signed a petition that said, “The sense of hopelessness has set in…. History has shown here…that when patients are feeling bored, hopeless and warehoused, …assault and suicide attempts transpire.”
As a direct result of Taylor’s death and citing concerns that other patients could die, the Colorado Department of Health conducted an immediate investigation of CMHIP in October 2009, according to The Denver Channel (KMGH): http://www.thedenverchannel.com/print/24085289/detail.html. In its report, the health department found patients at the state hospital in Pueblo to be in “immediate jeopardy” and detailed serious errors by the institution’s staff. The department conducted an unannounced inspection of the facility again this past May.
CALL7 investigators from The Denver Channel, who have been reporting on deaths at the state hospital for months, also uncovered the death of another patient of the CMHIP, whose death was never reported to the state health department by CMHIP. Josh Garcia died after being overdrugged and neglected by staff at the psychiatric institution. According to his family, Garcia was given a number of powerful psychiatric drugs and suffered serious adverse effects, including severe abdominal pain. He complained to the staff but was ignored, according to his family. By the time Garcia was taken to a hospital, it was too late. His bowels burst, severe infection set in, and he was brain dead within hours. His family sued and recently received a settlement from the state over his death.
The Colorado Legislative Audit Committee has also called for repeated investigations of the CMHIP in recent years, due to complaints it receives. In a report released in December 2009, the Office of the State Auditor found numerous deficiencies in the operations of the CMHIP that compromised safety and proved costly to the state. Among these deficiencies, the institution did not adequately record, investigate or resolve patient complaints. For 25 percent of the 1,100 patient complaints relating to staff behavior and quality of treatment issues the facility recorded in fiscal years 2008 and 2009, the database did not even contain the names of the 270 staff members who were the subject of the complaints. The report also revealed that there were 11 patient deaths at the facility last year, the highest number in the three years covered in the report. How many of those were suicides, besides the suicide of Sergio Taylor, is unknown. Another audit is underway currently, again at the request of state legislators, to determine if there are other patients who have died of neglect at the state psychiatric hospital.
The CMHIP also has a history of failing to keep the public safe from the mentally ill housed there who have been found not guilty by reason of insanity in connection with serious crimes. Nine such patients escaped in 2009, with patient escapes at a three-year high.
