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Cold Shoulder: Disability rights group details strained relationship with West Virginia DHHR’s Crouch

West Virginia Department of Health and Human Secretary Bill Crouch pushed back last week on claims made by Disability Rights West Virginia Legal Director Michael Folio regarding issues at Sharpe Hospital. (File Photo)

CHARLESTON — As West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources Cabinet Secretary Bill Crouch exits the agency at the end of the month, a feud with the state’s disability rights watchdog has spilled into public view.

That feud has only increased since Michael Folio, a former DHHR legal counsel who became the legal director for Disability Rights West Virginia, left the department in August.

But DRWV’s executive director said they stand by Folio and are only trying to fulfill their federal mandate to protect the rights of those with intellectual, developmental and physical disabilities (IDD).

Since August, DHHR has instructed staff not to respond to DRWV requests for information without getting approval despite DRWV being allowed access by law to documents and DHHR staff. Since November, Crouch has publicly attacked Folio in two legislative hearings, accusing Folio of harassing the department with legal requests for information. And Crouch even put pressure on West Virginia Public Broadcasting to retract a story based on DRWV information, a story they stood by.

UNDER PRESSURE

Crouch, who has served as DHHR secretary since 2017, will retire effective Saturday, Dec. 31. But over that six-year period, Crouch has never met with leaders of DRWV, according to Susan Given, the organization’s executive director. Since the mid-1970s, DRWV has been authorized by Congress as the state’s Protection and Advocacy System agency that provides third-party monitoring of state agencies that serve the disabled.

Given and Folio, who spoke by phone Thursday, said the relationship between DRWV and DHHR wasn’t the best before Folio’s hire in August. Folio previously worked for DHHR as general counsel for the Office of Health Facilities, the division that monitor’s state-owned hospitals and other health facilities. But Folio is now using that experience to help DRWV discover issues involving alleged abuse and neglect of patients with intellectual and developmental disabilities in state hospitals.

During a meeting last week of the Joint Committee on Health, Crouch said Folio wasted no time after leaving DHHR in August of sending multiple requests for information and documents.

“Mr. Folio was an employee of DHHR for two years,” Crouch said. “He left on Aug. 15. On Aug. 22, he started the job with Disability Rights … We’ve never been adversarial; we’ve never had issues with Disability Rights. On Aug. 23, we received various letters asking for detailed information. We’ve received probably 25 or 30 letters. We’re trying to respond to those from Disability Rights.”

An email provided by DRWV and sent Sept. 7 by Shevona Lusk, the chief operating officer for DHHR’s Office of Health Facilities, told staff not to provide information to DRWV until vetted by staff attorneys.

“If you receive a request from Disability Rights of West Virginia requesting information, don’t provide a response,” Lusk wrote. “You need to send the request to Secretary Crouch, April Robertson (DHHR general counsel) and Allen Campbell (general counsel for the state Health Care Authority) to review.”

Given said the DRWV and DRWV’s board of directors stands by Folio and the work he is doing.

“(Crouch) has said in a couple different meetings that he questioned whether our board of directors knew what was going on. I can assure you that they do,” Given said.

According to Given, Crouch wanted to have an in-person meeting in September with her and the leadership of DRWV’s board of directors. She was told that Folio could not attend. Crouch would have been joined by an unnamed member of Gov. Jim Justice’s staff.

“Crouch asked for a meeting with me and our board president and president elect, which I thought was very strange that he would ask to meet with any members of our board and he wouldn’t say what the agenda was about,” Given said. “I needed to know in advance, because — we are independent of state government — to determine whether it was anything I could talk about or not. But he wouldn’t tell me what it was about. He said there was going to be someone there from the governor’s office, but he wouldn’t tell me who that was.”

When Given asked if the meeting could take place by Zoom, Crouch rescinded the meeting invitation.

“It seems that just setting up a meeting between the leadership of these two agencies is a challenge, which I suppose is due to the history we share,” Crouch wrote to Given in a Sept. 16 email. “I was hoping we could work on developing a better relationship and begin the process of improving communications, but perhaps that’s best left for another time. At this point, given the circumstances, it may be better for both agencies to proceed with their respective tasks and responsibilities in a more formal manner.”

PRESSING TOO HARD

On Nov. 3, West Virginia Public Broadcasting published a story about DRWV alerting lawmakers to alleged abuse of patients at Sharpe Hospital. Accusations included physical and verbal abuse of patients and neglect. DRWV also accused DHHR of failing to provide court-ordered updates to the organization.

According to reporter Amelia Knisely, Senate President Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, wrote a letter to Justice seeking a formal investigation into DRWV’s allegations and requesting the DHHR share information requested by DRWV.

“Despite several assurances over multiple years to fix these issues, it appears DHHR continues to struggle to protect our most vulnerable population,” Blair wrote. “The manner in which the Legislature has been alerted to these issues is very troubling, especially given the immensity and gravity of the information shared by DRWV.”

According to a six-page letter obtained from a governmental source sent Nov. 10 by Crouch to Butch Antolini, executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Crouch sought a full retraction of the Nov. 3 article. The letter was sent to 24 other people, including Knisely, legislative leadership, members of the Legislative Oversight Commission on Health and Human Resources Accountability, DHHR employees and DRWV staff.

“This article was factually incorrect,” Crouch wrote. “It is our hope that you will have a more accurate understanding of the facts, and that after reading these responses WVPB will offer a complete retraction.”

Eric Douglas, WVPB’s news director, was not copied on the letter. Antolini, a former communications director for the Governor’s Office, declined to comment on this story. But despite Crouch’s letter, WVPB has stood by the story, leaving it online and unchanged from when it was first published.

“Secretary Crouch had a friendship with Butch Antolini for decades,” said Allison Adler, communications director for DHHR. “The letter was copied to him as director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Other individuals were copied on the letter for transparency and were originally included in Senator Blair’s letter to the governor to which Secretary Crouch provided a response. The understanding was that Butch Antolini, as director, would relay to his staff, including the news director.”

MAKING CHANGES

On Nov. 13, Crouch addressed lawmakers during two different interim committee meetings at Cacapon Resort State Park in Berkeley Springs during a briefing on the $1 million McChrystal Group’s organizational assessment and strategic plan for DHHR. Crouch again accused Folio of harassment for seeking information required to be sent to DRWV by federal law.

“It’s almost bordering on harassment,” Crouch said. “Mr. Folio and the board of Disability Rights needs to look at what Mr. Folio is doing.

“If they have any specific information, anything, any evidence that Sharpe or (Mildred Mitchell-Bateman Hospital) or DHHR has done something wrong that is inconsistent with state and federal statute, go straight to (the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) and do it now if you’re worried about that.”

The next day, DRWV received a letter from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights confirming it was opening an investigation into allegations that DHHR was unlawfully discriminating based on disability. DHHR is also accused of not properly administering the state’s IDD waiver program which allows individuals with IDD to remain with family or service providers instead of being institutionalized.

According to testimony from Folio at last week’s Joint Health Committee meeting, about 88 IDD patients are institutionalized in DHHR facilities at an estimated cost of $20 million. Another 20 geriatric patients are in the state’s two psychiatric hospitals at a cost of $16.9 million. DRWV is sending a letter to DHHR to preserve all documents and electronic communications, accusing officials of showing preferential treatment to state-operated facilities.

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

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