THE guardians of two patients with mental illness have filed a $2 million lawsuit against the CNMI government and the Commonwealth Health Center for allegedly violating the rights of the patients.
Luis B. Camacho and Vicente Camacho, guardians of Serafin and Francisco, also sued Public Health Secretary James U. Hofschneider, former Health Secretaries Isamu J. Abraham and Joseph Kevin Villagomez, Joaquin I. Taitano as deputy secretary for hospital administration, Dr. Laura Post, Dr. Andrew Bottone, and 25 unnamed CHC employees.
The plaintiffs, through attorney Jeanne H. Rayphand of the Northern Marianas Protection and Advocacy Systems, Inc., asked the U.S. District Court to order the defendants to pay each of them $1 million in damages.
The plaintiffs sued the defendants for alleged violations of their civil rights, the Americans With Disabilities Act, the Involuntary Civil Commitment Act, and the Patient’s Rights Act.
The Attorney General’s Office, counsel for defendants, signed a stipulation with the plaintiffs stating that the government should be given two additional weeks to file its response to the lawsuits.
Rayphand asked the court to declare that the defendants deprived the two patients of liberty without due process of law in violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and that they discriminated against them by reason of their disability.
Rayphand sought for an injunction ordering Hofschneider to promulgate written procedures for assessing whether a person has or lacks capacity to consent to treatment.
She also requested the court to order the defendants to provide the patients with sufficient qualified mental health professional staff, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, social workers and occupational therapists.
Rayphand said her clients should be separated from violent patients and other non-violent long term patients at the psychiatric ward of CHC.
According to the complaint, Post was employed at the CHC psychiatrist ward from 1997 to 1999 and was the psychiatrist treating Serafin.
From July 1999 to present, Bottone was and still is employed as the psychiatrist for CHC. He has been treating Francisco.
Rayphand said in 1986 and 1988, Serafin and Francisco were adjudicated by the trial court to be incompetent persons and committed to the custody of CHC’s Division of Mental Health.
Rayphand said the defendants, however, failed to adopt rules and regulations to ensure compliance with the Patients’ Rights Act in a prompt and efficient manner, as required by statute.
“Defendants have failed to adopt rules and regulations that establish policy when and under what conditions the public health will accept mentally ill persons who cannot benefit from treatment or for whom no treatment is available,” she said.
“Defendants have failed to establish written procedures for realistically assessing whether a person has or lacks the capacity to consent to treatment,” she said.
In July 2000, Rayphand said, upon determining that there was probable cause to believe that the plaintiffs had been subject to abuse and neglect, NMPASI requested access to the records of the patients. The defendants refused to permit NMPASI access to the records until after being ordered to do so by the federal court last December, she added.
