Scott Walker Has Not Stepped Up

Who are you going to believe? People with years of experience in the health care field or a professional, career politician looking to trick the voters?

Walker's Continuing Psych Crisis

Earlier: Walker's leadership needs reform

Even earlier: End the assaults

Walker Admits His Leadership Needs Reform

Unsurprisingly, Scott Walker has been assailed by all sides for his failure to protect our most vulnerable citizens, the mentally ill.

Through a series of articles in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other reports, we have learned that Walker has created a disaster at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex. These issues include:

• Scores of sexual assaults to occur, of which at least one led to a pregnancy
• A doctor who was the treating physician of a patient who was allowed to starve to death was left on staff for four years
• A severe shortage of staff creating an unsafe environment for patients and staff alike
• Nearly $15 million in deferred maintenance which led the physical building to be described as "shoddy"

In response to having his multiple failures pointed out, Walker came out with this ad:



I have to hand it to Walker. He has taken hypocrisy to a whole new level that I did not think even he could.

He correctly describes the situation as a community problem, but fails to admit his responsibility in creating the problems. He then states that he finds it "unacceptable" if only one person falls through the cracks. And as the topper to it all, he attacks his opponent, Tom Barrett, for playing politics with the mentally ill.

Gosh, where to start...

It was Walker who had repeatedly cut services and staffing at the mental health complex each year of his administration. He continued to duo so even after being warned for years that the staffing shortage was becoming critical and that it was causing unsafe conditions for patients and staff alike.

It was Walker who refused not only eliminated the secure wards that had been at the complex, and then refused to even entertain the notion of reinstating one despite the recommendations of the Director of Psychology.

It was Walker who decided to so drastically reduce the maintenance budget that there was insufficient funding, material or man power to keep the facility from getting into such a state of disrepair that it was described by inspectors as being in "shoddy condition" and would cost up to $15 million to bring it up to snuff.

It should also be noted that it was not just one patient falling through the cracks, but dozens of patients being shoved off the edge, all because Walker wanted to promote his own ideology and his political aspirations.

Walker allowed these problems to go on for years and even worked to exasperate the problems, so how unacceptable could he have found it all?

To his credit, Walker has just announced that he will raise the funding levels for the mental health complex, hire more staff, and increase the security. Unfortunately, the amount he is adding might not be enough to deal with all of the problems that he has allowed to arise out there.

What is really shameful is that it took all of this public attention and outrage, during a big election year, before Walker thought it fit to start reversing the damage he had created. But then again, we went through the same thing four years ago, during Walker's first unsuccessful run for governor, when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a whole series of articles about the horrible, and sometimes fatal, housing conditions that the mentally ill have to contend with in the community. Even then, he had to reach out for help from Tom Barrett and the City of Milwaukee to help fix the problems he had created.

Which brings us to the one thing I fully agree with Walker on. The leadership, or lack thereof, which he has displayed for the past eight years is in desperate need of reform.

Just How Bad Is BHD?

So bad that it will take the advisory group a full year to complete their review.

Meanwhile, Scott Walker continues to offer bandages for a severed artery.

This is beyond sad, even for Walker.

Most Hypocritical Statement OF ALL TIME!

Walker said Barrett's criticism was playing politics with the issue and putting patients' safety at risk. - Scott Walker, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

OF ALL TIME!!

And if that wasn't enough, from the same article (emphasis mine):

"Any and all violence is unacceptable, which is why we are conducting a thorough review," Walker said in an e-mail reply. "It is clear the mayor is not familiar with the facts or he would know that every public psychiatric hospital in our state - including those run by Gov. Doyle - have mixed-gender units."

Apparently, Walker has a major identity problem going on (again, emphasis, me):

The audit was ordered by County Board Chairman Lee Holloway after reports of multiple patient sexual assaults at the county's psychiatric hospital in Wauwatosa, according to a letter dated Friday.

The other problem is Walker fails to admit that every other public psychiatric hospital is also adequately funded and staffed, where Milwaukee County's is not, thanks to Walker putting his politics before the people.

Walker Could Have Avoided BHD Problems Three Years Ago

At Milwaukee County First, I write that I have found out that Walker had a proposal for a secure unit at BHD that would have prevented much of the problems we are watching unveil today. Walker rejected it out of hand.

Basically, it comes down to this:

But even more important than Chianelli’s future with the County is that Scott Walker needs to be held accountable for again putting his political aspirations before the best interests of the county that he is supposed to be leading. He also needs to come up with a plan on how he is going to fix these problems he has created with his ideological short-sightedness.

When Tom Ament had put his own interests before the County’s, at least that only cost us money. Lots of money to be sure, but still, only money.

When Scott Walker puts his interests before the County’s, not only does it cost us a lot of money, but people, our most vulnerable citizens, get hurt and even die because of it. That is simply unacceptable.

A Growing Call To Fix BHD

The problems at BHD are gaining more attention as things start to reach a boiling point. Now three supervisors and some community advocates are calling for these problems to be fixed, including removing BHD Director John Chianelli from his duties.

As James Rowen points out, why were there only three supervisors calling for action to be taken?

I should mention that Milwaukee County First has been calling for that for a while. Speaking of MCF, see the real reasons for the problems listed in our latest posting.

Also, since I've bashed on the paper plenty of times, I would like to commend and recognize Steve Schultze and Meg Kissinger of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for doing a great job covering this developing story.

Deplorable

From Milwaukee County First:

“Deplorable.”

That is the word that the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quotes County Board Supervisors and mental health advocates having used to describe Behavioral Health Division Director John Chianelli’s excuses for how a female patient at BHD was allowed to be repeatedly sexually assaulted and impregnated.

From the article:

Milwaukee County’s top mental health administrator intentionally houses female patients with men known to be dangerous “because the presence of women reduces the likelihood of the men being violent,” according to a county supervisor’s letter obtained by the Journal Sentinel.

John Chianelli, administrator of the county’s Behavioral Health Division, told county supervisors during a closed-door session last month that segregating men and women would result in more violence.

“It’s a trade-off,” he said. “Putting 24 aggressive male patients into a male-only unit would increase the level of violence in the unit.”

These comments were made in a closed session in which members of the County Board questioned Chianelli regarding the reports of repeated sexual assaults being allowed to happen.

The Board apparently thinks that the main reason for these sexual assaults are simply because patients are in co-ed units. Chianelli is feeding into these perceptions by trying to say that sexual assaults of female patients is an acceptable trade off for a higher level of physical aggressions if they were housed in an single-gender unit.

They are both wrong.

Read the rest here.