Center sees changes after abuse allegations

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri's Department of Mental Health announced changes Monday at a center being investigated for alleged abuse, including the alleged beating death of a patient.

The department said it altered the leadership, staffing and restraint procedures at the state-run Bellefontaine Habilitation Center, a resident care center for the mentally ill in suburban St. Louis.

The changes, which went into effect Friday, were made by an assessment team working on site while investigators look into the Aug. 3 death of George Holmes. His relatives were told Holmes suffered a heart attack and fell, but they say his body looked as though he'd been beaten.

There are two internal investigations and one police investigation into the death of Holmes, 33, who suffered from mild retardation, and the beating of Dawn Kirkendall, 25, who suffers from brain damage and was found with black eyes at the center. Five workers are on paid leave as a result of the two cases.

The department said Jerry Clubbs, deputy director of Habilitation Centers for the Division of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, is temporarily overseeing day-to-day center operations.

Department spokeswoman Jeanne Henry said no one had been fired or asked to resign. She said Clubbs was an addition to leadership at the center, not a replacement.

Psychologists will now be at the center seven days a week for 12 hours a day, up from five days a week and eight hours a day.

Also, psychology and nursing staff will make assessments to ensure physical restraint is used only when necessary and as a last resort.

Henry said the assessment team, led by the department's deputy director Linda Roebuck, has been on site since last Monday.

Henry said she did not have any information that the team found evidence of beatings or mistreatment.

She said she could not speak specifically to what prompted the changes, saying only they came as part of the assessment. "They're assessing everything," she said.

The Bellefontaine center has faced repeated accusations of abuse and neglect over the past several years.

In June 2002, a male resident of the center was slashed on his genitals.

In 2000, a staffer told the state he saw a nurse hold a pillow on a resident's face while feeding the resident through a feeding tube.

In 1999, center workers waited three weeks before getting help for a resident who broke her jaw in a fall after being restrained.

The same year, another resident died in her bed after workers gave her a sedative, and a man died after a swallowing a plastic bag when an aide was not watching closely enough.