The detox center may refuse to accept some potential clients in the future, leaving it up to police to decide whether to jail them on preliminary charges or bring them to hospital emergency rooms, said Gary Olson, director of the Center for Alcohol and Drug Treatment, which includes the detox center.
“We’re taking people that they do not want at the hospital, and they do not want them at jail,” Olson said in a telephone interview. “This kind of thing says: Is it really worth it to take that kind of risk? We’re the ones who end up getting cited.”
Olson said he has discussed closing the seclusion rooms with his staff and will make a decision by the end of the week.
The incident, and another involving a scuffle over a client’s cellphone, prompted the Minnesota Department of Human Services to slap the center with a total of $3,000 in fines along with maltreatment findings, according to documents filed on April 5 and released to the public on Monday.
Although the detox center has the right to appeal, it won’t, Olson said.
“They uncovered some things that were of concern to us,” he said. “We’re assessing what we might do to change the situation.”
According to the DHS report, the incident occurred on June 2, when police brought an individual to detox at 1:45 p.m. with a 0.265 blood alcohol content — more than three times the legal limit for driving.
Less than an hour later, staff members found that individual and another client having sexual intercourse in a restroom stall, the report states. Each was placed in a seclusion room. The DHS report doesn’t indicate the genders of the two individuals, but says that the second client had entered detox earlier and was sober at the time.
At 3 p.m., staff saw the intoxicated client “trying to harm self” by attempting to wrap clothing around the neck. They responded by removing all of the client’s clothing. A camera monitor at the staff desk showed the client “naked and passed out.” The clothing was returned and both clients were moved out of seclusion when they became “quiet and calm” by 4:30 or 4:45 p.m.
The report said staff members expressed concern about “whether the sexual contact was consensual or whether the sexual contact was a criminal act” with the intoxicated client as the victim. But the incident wasn’t reported to police until June 16 and the alleged victim wanted to drop the matter, so there was no police investigation.
The report concluded that both neglect and emotional abuse occurred.
“Having one’s clothing removed, and being on camera in front of staff persons and others for any period of time would be considered by a reasonable person to be derogatory or humiliating,” it stated.
In the other incident, staff members “physically attacked” a client to get the client’s cellphone away. The client was scratched on the hands and arms.
Olson said he disagreed with at least one sentence in the DHS report, which stated that the facility conducted an internal review and determined that policies and procedures were followed.
“There were some facts in (the DHS report) that were different than what we had reported internally, so I’m taking a look at our reporting processes,” Olson said. “I think we need to look a little further into that to find out what exactly was done or not done, and we’ll take appropriate action.”
What occurred in the June 2 incident is not the norm, he said. “It’s not our policy to put people naked in a room.”
Olson said individuals are being brought to detox with more complicated problems than in the past, such as mental health issues.
“The issue is how we manage more complicated behavioral patterns like suicidal behavior,” he said. “We’re not equipped to handle some of that. We’re definitely looking at making some changes which may have some impact on hospitals and law enforcement.”
Olson said he has been seeing behavior lately that he hadn’t seen in more than 40 years at the detox center. A couple of weeks ago, a client did between $2,000 and $3,000 worth of damage to the facility when he tried to escape through the ceiling, Olson said.
“We’ve been doing this a long time, and it’s a difficult business,” he said. “We admit about 3,500 people a year and have been doing that for 44 years and have not had a lot of incidents.”
Although he said he doesn’t want to undermine the value of the detox facility to the community, its personnel have the right to turn away potential clients.
“We’re not supposed to take people that are medically unstable, suicidal or violent and that’s kind of a moving target,” Olson said. “We can refuse to take people.”
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