[U]NDERHILL — State investigators have identified a number of violations at Maple Leaf Treatment Center. The most serious are unreported complaints from clients who say they were verbally abused by a staff member at Maple Leaf, according to a report released last week.
Residential treatment centers such as Maple Leaf are required to report complaints of abuse to the state Adult Protective Services program within 48 hours, but multiple complaints of abuse from patients, dating back to July, were never reported.
Maple Leaf is a drug rehabilitation program with 41 inpatient beds. It accounts for 30 percent of inpatient beds at treatment centers in Vermont. Earlier this month, the facility was forced to close temporarily due to staff vacancies.
Investigators at the Division of Licensure and Protection, which regulates health care facilities, say they identified seven instances in which “suspected, reported or alleged” incidents of “abuse, neglect or exploitation” were not reported to state officials.
The division also found that clients at Maple Leaf did not receive information about their rights; staff did not receive the proper training; and the program was not keeping records of whether the facility was properly staffed. Maple Leaf employees told investigators staffing was insufficient.
Maple Leaf has submitted a plan of correction to state officials, which has been accepted. The facility has 60 days to implement the plan. If the plan is not implemented within that period, the facility could lose its certification and be forced to close permanently.
A spokesman for Maple Leaf did not respond to a request for comment Thursday after the report was released. Neither did Executive Director Catey Iacuzzi. Multiple board members declined comment as well. One member, reached by phone before the report was released, referred VTDigger to the company spokesperson.
Ken Liatsos, the spokesperson for Maple Leaf, said in an email Wednesday that the board, which met Tuesday night, is “intimately involved in ensuring that (Maple Leaf) regains a stable footing, and they will continue to meet regularly.”
Liatsos said the board is “flat out” and members would not speak to a reporter until the “end of next month.”
The state’s report does not identify the person or people alleged to have acted abusively toward clients. However, five current and former staffers told VTDigger that complaints at Maple Leaf centered on the behavior of Clinical Director Dr. Charles Sprague Simonds, who was hired in May, about the time complaints of abuse identified by state investigators began.
The workers, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said Iacuzzi did nothing to rein in Simonds’ alleged behavior when staff reported it to her, and would instead defend him.
State investigators reported that staff who witnessed abusive behavior toward clients did not report it to state officials as required.
Simonds would frequently make remarks about the bodies of female staff and clients, the workers said. Two female former staffers said Simonds made them so uncomfortable they quit.
“I still have nightmares,” one said. “He used physical proximity to staff and patients to keep them where he wanted so he could speak with them.”
After VTDigger made multiple attempts to reach Simonds over several weeks, Maple Leaf’s attorney, Thomas Somers, replied with the following statement: “Certain false and defamatory allegations have been made against Dr. Simonds by anonymous individuals concerning personnel matters at Maple Leaf Treatment Center. State agency investigations into Dr. Simonds’ conduct have been closed with the finding that the allegations were not substantiated based on the information gathered during the investigations.”
“Internal Maple Leaf Treatment Center investigations have reached similar conclusions. These allegations against Dr. Simonds have no basis in fact,” the statement concludes.
Somers declined to answer follow-up questions asking what state agencies he was referring to, or what documentation or evidence there is that the claims made by current and former employees are “false and defamatory.”
Two state agencies investigating Maple Leaf said they had not provided the company with their findings at the time Somers sent his statement.
According to the state report released last week, a Maple Leaf administrator interviewed by state investigators said that in May and July someone on staff reported “harassment and unprofessional conduct” by a co-worker. Around that time, staff reported that the same co-worker “used a sexual term towards a resident.”
The administrator said the allegations were investigated internally by the human resources department, which determined the complaints were “boiled down through the gossip vine and had zero concerns,” according to the report.
One person being treated at the facility told investigators during an unannounced visit in December that a staff person asked “inappropriate and unprofessional” questions about the client’s history of trauma and abuse that left the client feeling “violated,” according to the Division of Licensing and Protection report.
The incident was not reported to Adult Protective Services by a staff person who witnessed it or by Iacuzzi, who told investigators she was aware of the incident. Iacuzzi told investigators the client was not interviewed to obtain a statement about the “inappropriate” questioning.
Investigators found Maple Leaf has a written policy that complaints of abuse should be vetted by the clinical director or an on-call physician before being reported, which violates the Vermont Abuse Reporting Requirements, according to the report.
When staff made female clients, who reported Simonds was commenting on their bodies, aware of Maple Leaf’s grievance process in July, Iacuzzi told workers during a staff meeting that they should resign if they planned to encourage clients to complain, according to two people who were present at the meeting.
“You have these women coming from backgrounds where if they’re being sexually harassed by a man who has power over them, they might need someone to let them know it’s all right to say something,” said one former staffer.
The report confirms that two grievances were filed by people being treated at the facility in July who reported “inappropriate and unprofessional” behavior by someone on staff.
Iacuzzi told investigators that she received the grievances but did not respond in writing to the people who filed them, as required by Maple Leaf’s written policies, according to the report.
