More reports??

 STA's on K & L Unit:

Irwin, Carmen, Candy, Gabby, Andrea, Keannette, Mark, Shaletha, Angelo, Kayerra, Chris, Phillip, Kashon, Manara, Marvin, Marion, Ed, Mandisa, Cam, Kherri, Jeffrey....

Everybody was trained on OIG Rule 50 reporting requirements, right?

Each and every employee at EMHC is a required reporter, whether you are a social worker, nurse, psychiatrist, janitor, or one of the 21 STA's I've named here. You are all required to call OIG within four hours, if you merely have any slightest suspicion that a patient might have been abused by staff. You do not have to know abuse happened, and you don't have to have witnessed it, to be required to report an allegation.

There are all kinds of abuse, too. A patient can be abused physically (e.g., Baker in chains when he could barely walk), sexually, (e.g., various young men of color seduced into sexual acts by female staff between 2005 and 2022), or mentally (e.g., every patient told they'd never get out without taking drugs). And they can be neglected (e.g., patients not offered any treatment in which they can willingly participate). 

Every one of you guys has at least heard a rumor of something that falls within the OIG Rule 50 definitions of abuse or neglect. You should have reported that within four hours. If you didn't, you violated the law. STA's are not professionally licensed or beholden to the IDFPR like doctors and social workers. However, in order to work in a state healthcare facility (EMHC), you did have to submit to a healthcare worker background check, and you probably have to be listed in the Illinois Department of Public Health's Nurse Aide Registry. The Department of Public Health may make administrative findings about abuse or neglect. They may accept complaints that you failed to follow the reporting requirements of OIG Rule 50.

The Illinois Administrative Code carefully lists criminal violations which disqualify a person from employment in any health care facility. Among them are sexual misconduct with a person with a disability, custodial sexual misconduct, and abuse and criminal neglect of a long-term care facility resident. If you suspect that any staff at EMHC have committed any such offenses, and you do not report your suspicion according to OIG Rule 50 requirements, you are complicit in the offenses. 

I'm not sure whether complicity alone, or turning a blind eye, would disqualify you for the job of STA. Maybe we'll have to see.