State vows clean sweep to keep records out of wrong hands

DANVERS - The state Department of Mental Health said it will search all abandoned state hospitals, one day after learning private psychiatric records from Danvers State Hospital were being offered for sale over the Internet.

"It's a little late, and it's an unfortunate circumstance," said Patricia Mackin, the department's chief of staff. "We're going to make sure we go through everything and walk through every building."

The state attorney general's office has also gotten involved.

"DMH contacted us yesterday, and we're trying to assist them with this issue," said Terence Burke, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Burke would not elaborate.

After inquiries from The Salem News, the state requested a 1977 Danvers State Hospital record book containing patients' names, doctors' notes and prescription doses be removed from an online auction site, where it was posted for sale.

Others, including state Rep. Ted Speliotis and the town archivist, have said patient records were left scattered across the floors of the hospital for years.

The state closed the hospital in 1992. Late last year, it was sold to developer AvalonBay, which plans to construct apartments and condominiums there.

When he toured the building as a member of the local preservation commission about three years ago, John Archer said he told state officials about the neglected patient documents, but they failed to act.

"No one did anything," Archer said. "No one cared."

Over the years, the records were subject to theft as curious thrill-seekers broke into the hospital to explore the buildings where as many as 2,000 mentally ill patients once lived. Archer said the state didn't board up the buildings or police them until recently.

"It's absolutely disgraceful any records would have been left in that building by the Department of Mental Health," Archer said. "It's despicable. That's where the fault lies."

Mackin said nobody from the department remembers seeing patient records inside the hospital over the past few years.

"I've been reassured that steps were taken to mothball and remove records," Mackin said.

But Archer said he has a picture of a foot-high stack of records lying inside the hospital. They contain details like patients' names, medications, past fights and relationships with other patients.

"This is a disgrace," said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney for the Massachusetts chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "If the state's going to shut down buildings that house patient records, they need to take adequate steps to take care of those records and make sure confidentiality is protected."

State Sen. Fred Berry said there are a lot of questions that need answers. He said he hopes the attorney general's office will go after the seller of the online auction.

"I do think we should investigate and get an understanding for how widespread the problem is," Berry said. "Obviously, somebody didn't do their due diligence when they closed the facility."

Any records could become more damaging if they contain inaccuracies, according to Judi Chamberlin, a patient advocate at the National Empowerment Center.

"You don't know what's in their records, and you don't know how credible they are," Chamberlin said. "It could say something that's very negative that may or may not be true."

Mackin said the Department of Mental Health will sweep the grounds of all its abandoned hospitals, including Boston State, Medfield State and Metropolitan State over the next month. It will search Danvers State on Monday, she said.

Susan Stefan, an attorney who specializes in mental health law, said the entire incident raises a variety of legal questions for the state as well as the host of the online auction.

"It's a law school exam question," she said. "How many statutes have been broken? How many regulations have been violated? Whoever took those records is subject to criminal liability."

Let the light in

Patients' records shouldn't be entirely off-limits to the public, according to an advocate for mentally ill patients.

Although she doesn't condone selling patient records on online auction sites, Judi Chamberlin of the National Empowerment Center said they are important for preserving the memory of those who spent much of their lives in state institutions.

"There are good reasons why people might want to access records," she said. "They shouldn't be locked away as if there's something shameful about them."

Historians, researchers and family members should be allowed to view records of patients who have died, Chamberlin said.

Recently, a group of researchers and ex-patients in New York found suitcases with personal possessions left behind by patients after a state hospital was abandoned. From the artifacts, they created the Suitcase Exhibit inside the New York State Archives, she said.

"These researchers got hold of people's records and told their life stories in a very illuminating way," she said.

This article was written by Chris Cassidy and published by Salem News on Friday, April 7th 2006 and NOT owned by nor affiliated with opacity.us, but are recorded here solely for educational use. The photographs featured in the article are randomly selected from the Danvers State Hospital galleries on opacity.us unless noted otherwise; they may not directly relate to the article subject matter except for the site location - any other relation is purely coincidental.