Attacks on employees
by patients at State Hospital
are investigated

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

The state Labor Department has renewed an investigation into alleged patient attacks on staff at the Hawaii State Hospital.

So far, however, the department's investigator reports he has found nothing to change an earlier finding that the hospital is complying with workplace safety rules, interim hospital administrator Wayne Law said today.

The state Department of Health also is investigating three incidents that occurred a few months ago, but the situation has calmed since, Health Department spokesman Patrick Johnston said.

Labor Department spokesman Patrick Stanley today said the hospital for the mentally ill "is a hazardous workplace --it's nothing unusual about Hawaii in that regard."

But he said the department had a complaint about employee safety in August.

After an investigation, the hospital was deemed in compliance with workplace safety rules, he said.

Since then, he said two additional complaints have been filed. "We went back and revisited the site. Information developed on the revisit was contradictory and disparate, so we're not sure we have the true picture at this time," Stanley said.

Law said a claimant alleged that the data the Labor Department got in the first investigation was incorrect, according to Harvie Messier, occupational safety and health compliance officer.

Johnston said an incomplete internal document on the Health Department's investigation into the incidents was given to the Labor Department.

"That study is going to be more thorough," he said. "They're going to uncover things that weren't around the first time. So the issue of inaccurate information or that we're trying to cover up some incident is absolute nonsense."

Messier, principal investigator for the first investigation, returned last Thursday to review all incident reports and data and has been interviewing staff.

Law said Messier "was able to track each incident report with the database to make sure it matches up."

He said Messier told him late yesterday he hadn't seen anything to change his earlier findings.

The hospital gave him all reports involving staff injuries, accidents and verbal threats since January, Law said.

The total: 36.

They include even the smallest incident, Law said. "We report everything ... and we take these things seriously."

He said seven injuries resulted in lost time at work. Four were assaults.

Of the total 36, he said 13 had nothing to do with patients but involved accidents such as a staff member hit by a volleyball, slipping on a banana peel or closing a door on a finger.'

Another three incidents were indirectly related to patients, such as a staff member twisting an ankle chasing a patient trying to escape, Law said.

All the incidents occurred in Unit H, one of two units where a new rehabilitation program known as the Nebraska Model started July 20, he said.

An employee's jaw was broken by a patient in the most serious incident after the program began. However, the incidents also precede the program, Law said.

He said patients in that unit have severe mental disorders and behavioral disturbances and some have low intelligence.

"Behavioral disturbance is one of the things the program is able to address," he said.

Hospital officials held a news conference last Thursday to report a decline in incidents and improvement in some patients in the new program, called Pookela. Coincidentally, it was the same day the Labor Department reopened its investigation.

Some staff members complained about patient violence in August after the new program began and the Hawaii Government Employees Association began an investigation.

Hospital officials at the news conference said the staff is getting intensive training for the program and those involved with it are excited. It's intended to give patients social and behavioral skills to return successfully to the community.