September 23, 2009 in City

Mental hospital CEO steps down

John Stucke The Spokesman-Review

Tags:Eastern State HospitalHal WilsonPhillip A. Paul

File photo

Eastern State Hospital’s top administrator has resigned in the aftermath of last week’s escape during a Spokane Interstate Fair field trip of a criminally insane patient committed to the hospital for the slaying of a Sunnyside woman 22 years ago.

The escape ignited public fury and led to calls for changes to state law. The controversy also prompted Harold “Hal” Wilson to leave his post by Oct. 1.

His resignation came a day after Gov. Chris Gregoire said she was embarrassed that the state took schizophrenic killer Phillip Paul and other mental patients with violent crime histories to “Family Day” at the Spokane County Fair. At the same time, Gregoire said she now will consider pushing for changes to state law that would send such patients to more secure facilities such as prisons. Paul has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

In his resignation letter to Susan Dreyfus, secretary of the Washington Department of Social and Health Services, Wilson wrote: “Hopefully, this will move to help signify that a change in leadership at the hospital is being taken and that new vision and direction can be brought forth to lead the Hospital.”

Wilson’s departure is not a surprise. Public reaction to the episode has veered from disbelief to anger to incredulity. Comedian Jay Leno even made the fiasco a punch line this week in his primetime television monologue.

The resignation was not forced, said Doug Porter, assistant secretary of DSHS’s Health & Recovery Services Administration. He said Wilson had planned to retire.

Dreyfus has launched an investigation into the incident and plans to release his preliminary findings Oct. 2. The full report is expected to be completed in late October.

Wilson will be off the off the job by then, ending a 28-year state career that culminated as administrator of the mental health hospital for the past decade.

“I leave with saddened heart and can only hope that we can overcome public sentiment and once again provide the treatment for our patients that they so desperately need,” Wilson wrote.

He did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.

Connie Wilmot has been assigned the job as acting administrator while the investigation continues and state officials plan the hospital’s leadership transition.

She has been the hospital’s chief operating officer for the past nine years.

Wilmot’s background includes work as a psychiatric staff nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center in the early 1970s. In the 1990s she became the mental health quality assurance chief at Eastern State Hospital, reviewing practices to ensure treatment of patients matched up to professional standards. At the time she also worked in a management position at St. Luke’s Hospital.

She worked for a year as director of quality management at Eastern before assuming the job in August 2000 as operating officer, where she is in charge of the hospital’s day-to-day operations.

Greg Davis, president of Washington Federation of State Employees, Local 782, which represents Eastern State Hospital workers, called Wilson a “man of honor and trust.”

“I don’t know if it’s a smart move to start accepting resignations when you’re only a few days into this investigative process,” he said.

Davis last week leveled criticism at administration policies and practices that allowed the types of field trips from which Paul escaped. The union, he said, has made known its concerns about allowing murderers, rapists and pedophiles committed to the hospital as criminally insane to attend public events such as the fair and baseball games.

He also laid blame for the two-hour delay in notifying police of Paul’s escape on administrators, who he said were notified by staff within minutes of when Paul was deemed missing.

Wilson has contended the hospital staff followed its policies and procedures, even as criticism continues to mount from all corners, including local law enforcement.

Paul was carrying a backpack on the trip to the fair last Thursday morning when he jumped a fence and walked away to meet a friend he had called for a ride to Goldendale, a small town near the Columbia Gorge about 250 miles southeast of Spokane and near his hometown of Sunnyside.

He was captured by a team of Spokane County deputies participating in a search of the area after the friend tipped searchers of Paul’s location.

Paul was returned to Eastern without incident.

13 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

jimdraft on September 23 at 1:48 p.m.
WOOHOO!
edmitch on September 23 at 2:34 p.m.
The CEO says all policies and procedures were followed.
I’m guessing this means that it was policy to take patients declared unsafe in public, by a Judge, on public outings?
I’m guessing it was policy to call Crime Check, not 911 in the case of escape?
I’m guessing that it was policy to incorrectly or falsely claim - 2 hours 15 minutes after the escape - that the patient had escaped only 45 minutes earlier?
I’m guessing that it was policy to assure us the patient was fine - while the Sheriff told the S-R that the patient had homicidal fantasies about murdering children?
Good thing ESH’s unusual policies were strictly followed!
PlanB on September 23 at 2:53 p.m.
And the witch hunt has now begun in full…
This is a case that should be handled by mental health experts, not the public, the Spokane County Fair, or the Bloomsday organization.
eagleproducer on September 23 at 4:23 p.m.
Some folks calls it a hand scythe, I call it a sling blade…
Jann on September 23 at 4:34 p.m.
I work in a state mental hospital in another state. I cant believe they let someone who is found not guillty by reason of mental insanity out to go on an outing when the judge over it didnt want it. I think it is wholly unacceptable to the people that it was so long in reporting to the authorities.
Rifleman_Dodd on September 23 at 7:57 p.m.
He will retired on a very cushy state retirement. I wonder why a Hospital needs a CEO…so many Chiefs and way too many Indians. I bet that place is crawling with bureaucrats etc. I would like the S-R to post how much all those people are making. I bet its embarrasing.
garfnagn on September 23 at 8:56 p.m.
Yeah go ahead and post it and make sure to post what the CEOs of Sacred Heart and Deac make. You know, because state employees are so overpaid and all.
Scoutster on September 23 at 9:53 p.m.
This man is taking the fall for a system that works fairly well most of the time despite its underfunding due to the commitment of a lot of people who could do well someplace else but instead have given their careers over to helping the most misunderstood and miserably tormented people you will ever see, doing it not for pay or recognition (because there is damn little of both) but because somebody has to do it and these public servants do it.
My hat is off to them. They are a big bunch of heroes (most of them) every bit as deserving of our awe and admiration as the ones we honor with parades.
And now the starved and pathetic public mental health system they have worked to cobble together with baling wire and chewing gum is being scrutinized by a bunch of hungry, angry amateurs. They’re breaking down the doors demanding answers to questions already resolved through compromise and scarcity a long, long time ago.
This was the biggest non-story of 2009. INSANE KILLER LOOSE AT COUNTY FAIR!!! Your blood runs cold, doesn’t it? And we lived off of and the press fed from that fear for four days. Now they make stock of the carcass. We’ll be eating this soup a long time.
But ask yourself this: why didn’t you know anything about the mental health system before Thursday?
It’s because those public and non-profit servants have kept this ugliness from you. They have been doing their job, and you never gave them any notice.
So, before you start judging every little thing they have had to do to get by, why not tell them “thanks”?
(For the record, neither I nor a family member is an employee of ESH nor a member of any union.)
PlanB on September 23 at 10:14 p.m.
Scoutster, thank you and well said. Too bad the media hasn’t interviewed professionals who know something about the situation.
mono on September 23 at 10:29 p.m.
Quit targeting Hal. Look at the incompetence of Gregoire first (millions she personally cost state taxpayers in failed legal proceedings) and Richard Kellogg the MHD director.
Hal is also a retired Col. from the Air Force and if the press investigated fully the dysfunction that was your state DSHS Mental Health Division you would all be outraged!! Note: On June 1st of this year the DSHS quietly moved the Mental Health Division to the Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse. Why you ask? Ask your legislator because the press isn’t volunteering anything.
Who will hold these DSHS Mental Health Division people accountable? Those people are Doug Porter, Richard Kellogg and David Weston.
mono on September 23 at 10:39 p.m.
But David Weston, mental health services chief for the mental health division, said experts determine whether to place a patient outside the unit based on individual needs.
“The state hospitals have a very complex and difficult job to do,” Weston said. “Sometimes, in times of scarce resources we end up not being able to provide the services we wish we could provide.”
davidthewhat on September 24 at 6:43 a.m.
With all the lack of funding in the state mental health division that has come to be, it is no wonder that there is so much incompetency in the running of the mental health functions at Eastern State Hospital. Now Gregoire is screaming that the laws need to be changed because it makes her look good. I have seen this before in her. It is her incompetence and the legislatures incompetence through the lack of proper funding and oversight into the running of the mental health division of the states Dept. of Social and Health Services, not the individual mental patients that she is screaming that needs to take the brunt of this. Governor Gregiore is an absolute joke.
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