ROCHESTER HILLS, Mich. (WXYZ) — A state senator is calling for better oversight of the Hawthorn Center in Northville Township following a 7 Action News investigation revealing how vulnerable young patients have been put in harm’s way while under the state’s care.
Since 2020, at least 17 young patients at the Hawthorn Center—the only state-run psychiatric facility for kids—have escaped from the hospital, or while under staff supervision.
“You don’t have to look very deep to see that there’s problems there,” said Sen. Mike Webber (R-Rochester Hills), the minority vice-chair of the Committee on Health Policy.
RELATED: Hawthorn Center loses 13-year-old psychiatric patient overnight in Detroit
Some young patients were missing from the hospital for hours, police records show, while others were found only after police K-9s were called.
In some cases, escaped patients would be later accused of committing assault while they were out.
Just over a month ago, a 13-year Hawthorn patient transferred to another facility while under the state’s care went missing, in the middle of the night, in the middle of Detroit.
“I mean, it’s a total failure,” Webber said, “and we’re failing those kids.”
RELATED: Psychiatric hospital for Michigan's sickest children struggles to stop patient escapes
Today, Webber says it is incumbent on lawmakers to understand exactly what is going wrong at Hawthorn, and ensure state officials fix it.
“It’s a glaring issue that needs to be looked at and addressed from a liability standpoint, from a public safety standpoint for sure,” he said.
The problems come at a time when the facility is about to undergo significant change. The aging hospital along Haggerty in Northville Township will be closing in July, after which time the old building will be demolished, and a new hospital built there.
In the meantime, the young patients at Hawthorn will be moved to Walter Reuther Hospital in Westland, a psychiatric facility that treats adults.
Given Hawthorn’s current problems, some parents are concerned.
“They’re going to mix the children at the Hawthorn Center with adult psychiatric patients when they can’t even keep the kids in the building at the Hawthorn Center?” asked Michelle Massey Barnes, co-founder of Advocates for Mental Health of Michigan youth. “How is this going to work?”
The Department of Health and Human Services tells us that once children arrive at Reuther Hospital, adult patients with histories of “sexualized behaviors” and “aggression involving minors and arson” will be moved to another state facility.
The adult patients that remain, according to a spokeswoman, will be separated from children.
But in spite of all the problems mounting at Hawthorn, parents like Massey Barnes say the hospital has never been more needed. For so many families, it's the last resort.
But once Hawthorn closes, and patients are moved to Reuther, finding a state psychiatric bed will become even harder for kids, at least in the short-term.
Today, Hawthorn is funded to treat nearly 80 children, but because of staffing shortages, they’ve only been able to treat about 42. When patients are moved to Reuther next month, they’ll only be able to treat 32 at a time.
By year’s end, the state says they hope to be able to open a new floor at Reuther hospital that could allow them to increase the number of children treatment from 32 to about 60. That’s assuming that they can hire enough employees to staff those beds.
Contact 7 Investigator Ross Jones at ross.jones@wxyz.com (248) 827-9466.