LANSING, Mich. — Senate Committee on Health Policy Minority Vice Chair Michael Webber on Monday sent a letter to Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Elizabeth Hertel demanding that recently deleted public data regarding recipient rights complaints be restored to the department’s website.
“Director Hertel cannot continue to operate MDHHS under a cloak of secrecy by simply hiding data that confirms her department’s ongoing record of failure,” said Webber, R-Rochester Hills. “Families must be able to trust the systems meant to protect their loved ones. Yet the more we learn, the worse it gets — vulnerable patients are being harmed under her watch.”
MDHHS deleted two years of public records from its website regarding recipient rights complaints and data related to the Hawthorn Center — the state’s former inpatient psychiatric hospital for minors — just days after being contacted by news reporters. The inquiries followed up on the Office of the Auditor General’s recent report that outlined substantial failures within the Office of Recipient Rights, the agency within MDHHS tasked with protecting the rights of public mental health service recipients.
The removal of this data “is deeply concerning, especially given that a recent audit found the figures may understate the true number of verified incidents because of poor documentation,” Webber wrote in his letter to Hertel.
Webber has also requested legislative oversight hearings to investigate MDHHS after the audit revealed that recipient rights complaints were often left unanswered, video surveillance equipment inside state psychiatric hospitals was often missing or not working, and MDHHS failed to properly investigate serious allegations in a timely manner.