A new audit of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Recipient Rights shows a delay in responding to some complaints of alleged abuse, neglect and injuries at psychiatric hospitals.
The audit concluded ORR efforts were not sufficient to protect and promote recipient rights of public mental health services.
The ORR’s purpose is to protect and promote the rights of individuals receiving mental health services, and help recipients exercise those rights. The office was established because the state’s first psychiatric hospitals were similar to institutions, according to Marianne Huff, the president of Michigan’s Mental Health Association.
When the ORR was established in 1995, it was a “really big deal,” Huff said.
Huff said that if an individual felt someone they knew was “acting a little strange,” they could admit the person to a psychiatric hospital, which was then called an asylum.
The Office of Auditor General reported eight findings concerning shortcomings from ORR, which is under the direction of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services. The office agreed with five of the findings, partially agreed with two and disagreed with one. This report randomly sampled 240 of over 5, 000 complaints to ORR between October 2021 and July 2024.
Almost a third of those complaints alleging abuse, neglect or injuries weren’t acted on in a timely manner. Initiating a response took six days on average, according to the audit. Auditors said video surveillance from investigated incidents was missing. Other complaints included failing to provide investigation status reports and interventions in a timely manner. The office also doesn’t have a process to monitor the state psychiatric hospitals’ incident reports, the report found.
This isn’t a new problem, Huff said.
Simon Zagata, the Director of Community and Institutional Rights at Disability Rights Michigan, said he feels the report matches his team’s experiences with the ORR.
He said Disability Rights Michigan wrote a report in 2007 alleging similar complaints about the ORR. “Just based on that report it has been nearly 20 years,” Zagata said. “So these are ongoing problems, and there's an ongoing need for reform.”
MDDHS paid a $13 million settlement to a dozen employees and patients in December 2024 after a poorly executed active shooter drill at the former Hawthorn Center two years prior. Sen. Michael Webber (R-Rochester Hills) requested the audit after hearing accounts from those affected by the drill.
There are only two recipient rights officers for every state psychiatric hospital in Michigan, Zagata said. Each of those hospitals can have around 200 patients at a time. “That’s just not enough people, that’s not enough staff power,” Zagata said.
Huff said she’s wondered why the ORR isn’t an independent unit. “Rights officers can encounter resistance when they work, either in the (community mental health) system or when they work in state hospitals, because let's face it, they're there to investigate the people that they work with,” she said.
Over 50% of complaints the officers received were treated as “interventions,” which aren’t defined in the Mental Health Code, Zagata said.
“Current (Michigan Compiled Laws) language may not fully support this widely used practice and contains inconsistent language," the report read.
In a statement, MDHHS acknowledged that there are “opportunities for process improvement and has already taken steps to improve the timeliness of reports.” ORR has hired additional staff and updated its required training for all staff.
MDHHS also stated that some of the OAG’s findings were “outside of their scope of knowledge.”
“They relied on their own expectations on how ORR should operate versus the requirements of the Mental Health Code and standards established through education and training,” the statement read.
