A Michigan State Senator is calling for a hearing on a troubled Michigan psychiatric hospital that has been subject to several WXYZ investigations.
Sen. Michael Webber, a Republican from Rochester Hills and the Senate Health Policy Minority Vice Chair, said Wednesday he is requesting a hearing over the Northville hospital's problems.
Related: Psychiatric hospital for Michigan's sickest children struggles to stop patient escapes
“You don’t have to look very deep to see there are serious concerns here,” Webber said in a staement. “Many parents who have children at Hawthorn no longer trust the Department of Health and Human Services in keeping their kids safe. We have a duty to these young people and their loved ones to ensure Michigan’s only state-run psychiatric hospital is being operated correctly and following all appropriate policies and laws.”
Related: Hawthorn Center loses 13-year-old psychiatric patient overnight in Detroit
Since 2020, at least 17 young patients at the Hawthorn Center—the only state-run psychiatric facility for kids—have escaped from the hospital, or while under staff supervision.
Some young patients were missing from the hospital for hours, police records show, while others were found only after police K-9s were called.
In some cases, escaped patients would be later accused of committing assault while they were out.
Just over a month ago, a 13-year Hawthorn patient transferred to another facility while under the state’s care went missing, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Detroit.
“I mean, it’s a total failure,” Webber said, “and we’re failing those kids.”
The problems come at a time when the facility is about to undergo significant change. The aging hospital along Haggerty in Northville Township will be closing in July, after which time the old building will be demolished, and a new hospital built there.
In the meantime, the young patients at Hawthorn will be moved to Walter Reuther Hospital in Westland, a psychiatric facility that treats adults.
Given Hawthorn’s current problems, some parents are concerned.
“They’re going to mix the children at the Hawthorn Center with adult psychiatric patients when they can’t even keep the kids in the building at the Hawthorn Center?” asked Michelle Massey Barnes, co-founder of Advocates for Mental Health of Michigan youth. “How is this going to work?”
The Department of Health and Human Services tells us that once children arrive at Reuther Hospital, adult patients with histories of “sexualized behaviors” and “aggression involving minors and arson” will be moved to another state facility.
The adult patients that remain, according to a spokeswoman, will be separated from children.
But in spite of all the problems mounting at Hawthorn, parents like Massey Barnes say the hospital has never been more needed. For so many families, it's the last resort.
But once Hawthorn closes, and patients are moved to Reuther, finding a state psychiatric bed will become even harder for kids, at least in the short-term.
Today, Hawthorn is funded to treat nearly 80 children, but because of staffing shortages, they’ve only been able to treat about 42. When patients are moved to Reuther next month, they’ll only be able to treat 32 at a time.
By year’s end, the state says they hope to be able to open a new floor at Reuther hospital that could allow them to increase the number of children treatment from 32 to about 60. That’s assuming that they can hire enough employees to staff those beds.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com (248) 827-9466.
