Patients and Workers Allege Mistreatment and Incompetence at Publicly Funded Mental Health Care

[TexasTowelie]

Patients and Workers Allege Mistreatment and Incompetence at Publicly Funded Mental Health Care Clinic


Dozens of providers in D.C. offer free or reduced-cost mental health care to residents who qualify for Medicaid. It’s also pretty easy to get connected: Prospective patients can visit D.C.’s Department of Behavioral Health in person or call the Access HelpLine to get matched with any one of the 40 city-certified community-based providers, or Core Services Agencies.

One such provider is Kinara Health and Home Care Services, LLC. It’s certified by DBH and received over $1.1 million in public dollars this year to provide care for some of the city’s most vulnerable patients. Kinara reports and bills to both DBH and Medicaid, the insurance program for people who are low-income or disabled.

But in interviews, eight former Kinara patients—all of whom were either experiencing homelessness or struggling with mental health problems—and two former workers describe troubling practices at Kinara:

• A patient says the housing liaison misled her into thinking he was a doctor.

• Two patients experiencing homelessness say an outreach worker threatened to beat them up for not turning down their music.

• Kinara outreach workers stand outside homeless shelters trying to recruit new patients, a practice seasoned experts in this work found odd. Meanwhile, Kinara’s founder says anyone can perform outreach.

• Patients believed they’d receive money or housing but left disappointed. (Kinara management denies the provider ever promises money or housing.)

• A patient experiencing homelessness says his case manager laughed at him while he was having a manic episode.

Read more: https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/news/city-desk/article/21103065/patients-and-workers-allege-mistreatment-and-incompetence-at-publicly-funded-mental-health-care-clinic

[get the red out]

1. What a nightmare

The most vulnerable people are preyed upon non-stop, but this company takes it to a whole new level.

Outsourcing mental health services for such powerless people is unconscionable! I guess so long as the government can outsource and pretend people are being helped, they can wash their hands of the situation.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

2. The shit that goes on in psych services

Would blow your mind.
Abuse,neglect. Narcissist staff.

In one psych hospital they had slanted shelving so anything you put on the shelf rolls off and hits the floor.

In another hospital I spent 18 months in a quiet room .


At another hospital I was raped by another patient. And staff refuses to talk to me about it. On top of that they outed me.

I had the police come and do a safe test . The next day my asshole psydoc told me I wanted it.
I said after the shock wore off how can you say that!

I got up walked out and slammed the door so hard the windows of other rooms adjacent to the door rattled.

It's dangerous to seek help , especially in an ER it's like Russian roulette because you might be sent to a bad place.

[get the red out]

3. Almost like back

In the 19th century “insane asylums”. For you it was literally that, since you experienced the torture of rape, then the psychological abuse of professionals blaming you!

Family members (and myself) have often received very poor care from the mental healthcare system, but nothing like you were put through!