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Corrigan Mental Health Center in Fall River, MA.
- 2024/12/14
- 再生時間： 45 分
- ポッドキャスト
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サマリー
あらすじ・解説
The IPU at Corrigan Mental Health Center. This is a psychiatric IPU in Fall River, MA. It's a DMH facility. Best parts: 1) there are some excellent staff members (excellent both for patients and for co-workers), (e.g., OT Kyle, providers Max and Allison, nurses Christian and Jill, tech Sean, Social Worker Nicole). 2) As a public-sector, unionized shop, the staff can be their authentic selves. For those who don't like their jobs, they can express that openly. They are not pressured to dissimulate. 3) for patients, if you are looking for a place to stay a while, (i.e., if you are okay with being detained longer than the usual 72 hours), and if you are young and hence able to access the outdoors space, it may be a good place. If you are a patient of one of the Corrigan doctors (like Mayer, then an advantage of having Mayer as a doctor is that he is able to use this unit as an IPU for his regular outpatient clients. He can keep them there in an emergency and thus provide a respite for the patient and their family, a chance to return to stabilization) Worst parts: (a) Approximately half of the patients do not have actual access to the outside. The staff will tell you they provide four outdoor opportunities per day. But for practical purposes, many of the patients cannot--orwould not be reasonably expected to--access the outdoors as provided by Corrigan. (To go outside requires negotiating a steep set of stairs [it can be possible to take elevators but the elevators are difficult to operate, the techs don't make them readily available, and even when the techs are asked to take someone down in the elevator, they may choose not to. ). In addition, accessing the outside can only be done in a large group. Many of the patients are anxious in groups and would love to access the outside if they were able to do so individually, but prefer not to go down in the crowded group, long-stair, way with chains and locks, and authentically depressed staff). (b) Taxpayers lose big time. This is an extremely cost inefficient IPU. It is staffed 24/7/365, (including always an on-call provider apparently), and the staffing levels are such that, during the day shift alone, there are more staff than patients!!! At one time, Corrigan IPU had 40 patients. The folklore is that a patient there hung themself and, as a result, the beds were dropped all the way to 16. But there are more than 16 staff working the day shift alone (not even counting the evening shift or nighttime shift). During the daytime, there are 5 nurses (a charge nurse, another unit nurse, a med nurse, and two nurses in an administrative role (not on unit). 2 occupational therapists 2 providers 4 techs and 3 social workers That is for 16 beds, and often a bed or two is empty, so let's say 15 patients on average. In addition, there are other staff who are not full time (or who work full time, but divide their time across the IPU and other operations): a pharmacist, a nutritionist (she may be full time), a peer advocate, a human rights officer, and more layers of admin. In addition, Corrigan tends to keep people longer than other inpatient units--- much longer (e.g., instead of 72 hours, one stays for months or even, for two patients, 2 years and counting). Because of this, there are more court proceedings compared to units which churn more on a 72 hour cycle. Few if any patients bring their own counsel. So whenever there is a hearing, the taxpayers are paying for the DMH attorney, the Corrigan Staff, the patient's attorney, and the judge or magistrate. (c) Danielle Keogh, LICSW is a reckless individual. You would think that social workers would be people who will talk directly to anyone they have issues with. SW Keogh was incapable of doing this and, instead, recklessly tries to railroad subordinates by going behind their back and trying to squeeze them. You would think that she, as a social worker, would be patient-centered. In fact, she claims the patients at Corrigan are not well enough for a patient-centered approach. Her priority appears to be her career and her title / her status. (How, one might ask did she get promoted to her current position after only a few years on the job? Pretty privilege? Who was making the hiring decision? Why do they like working with her?) Her focus is entirely on appearances and, in particular, looking good to bureaucrats. Her direction to her subordinates is to lie on MIS because her main priority is to do well in audits. That is, she wants to do well when she is evaluated from above. Her going behind subordinates' back and trying to clamp them down is the sign of someone who thinks that social work is about being a tool in a hierarchy. You would think that she, as a social worker, might view social work as a place to create change and fight social injustice. But in reality, she deals with personnel matters unprofessionally--as a matter for gossip. Her ...
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