AUGUSTA — A handful of current and former Riverview Psychiatric Center employees have asked the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee to look into problems at the state-run hospital.
Those problems, they say, include the bullying and harassment of staff members who raised concerns about patient care, patients who were denied food or drink, patients who were verbally and physically abused, a staff member who stole drugs but was not dealt with appropriately, and a patient who was inappropriately moved from the hospital’s forensic unit to its civil unit.
Located in Augusta, Riverview is a 92-bed mental and behavioral health hospital that treats people with severe mental illness through its civil unit and treats through its forensic unit criminal suspects who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial.
Riverview lost its federal certification and $20 million in annual federal funding — or about half its budget — last fall after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services found safety problems at the facility. Since then, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the facility, fired Riverview’s superintendent and tapped a patient advocate to replace her. The state is working to address problems at the facility, though last month Gov. Paul LePage suggested Maine might be better off ignoring federal safety regulations and funding Riverview by itself.
A handful of current and former Riverview employees reached out to the Office of Program Evaluation & Government Accountability and asked that it look into problems at the facility. OPEGA Director Beth Ashcroft said the workers spoke confidentially to her office and asked to remain anonymous because they feared reprisals.
On Wednesday, the Legislature’s Government Oversight Committee voted unanimously to have OPEGA start a preliminary inquiry to see whether efforts are already addressing the issues raised and whether OPEGA or another group would be most appropriate to do an investigation.
OPEGA is expected to report back in September.
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