By Terence Corcoran
The Journal News • September 15, 2008
SOUTHEAST - The co-owner of a private mental-health facility that has been fined by the state and faces revocation of its operating licenses for allegedly violating laws and failing to correct those violations is defending his company.
Dr. Joseph Santoro said the company had not been given a fair hearing and that it was being fined for violating at least one law that is murky at best.
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The state Office of Mental Health recently notified Santoro and Alfred Bergman, co-owners of the for-profit SLS Residential Inc., that it was revoking three licenses the company uses to run two residential treatment centers in the town of Southeast. The facilities treat adolescents and young adults with emotional and psychological issues.
The revocations, which will be stayed until SLS appeals in court, follow $110,000 in fines that the OMH levied in 2006 for the violations. SLS is appealing the fines in state Supreme Court in Putnam County, where Justice Andrew O'Rourke recently issued a stay until Sept. 26 so SLS can file a specific action challenging the state's rulings.
In a interview Friday, Santoro, vice president of SLS, said his company was appealing for several reasons.
"Number one, the evidence they (OMH officials) presented was largely hearsay," Santoro said. "Some of it you could consider rumor and gossip."
Santoro said SLS was not given a fair hearing by the OMH and would be vindicated in court. "(OMH) chose the hearing officer, paid for his services, and were kind of in bed with him," he said. "It wasn't an impartial hearing."
Jill Daniels, spokeswoman for OMH, defended the hearing.
"The Office of Mental Health has a process in place which ensures the independence and objectivity of a hearing officer," she wrote in an e-mail Friday. "As such, the hearing officer selected for the recent SLS hearing was chosen by someone who is not in any way involved in the oversight of SLS or its operation."
The OMH initially fined SLS, also known as Supervised Lifestyles, $80,000 in November 2006 for eight violations that inspectors found during unannounced visits to the residential centers on North Brewster Road and off Putnam Avenue. Inspectors returned later that month, finding more violations for which SLS was fined $30,000 more.
Among the alleged violations were that SLS restrained patients and prevented them from having contact with family members.
"The issue here is that there are real fundamental regulatory problems that OMH has been reluctant to address," Santoro said. "What is restraint as defined in laws and regulations? The definition in law of restraint is the use of an apparatus to immobilize someone. SLS has never restrained through the use of apparatus; therefore, we have never restrained based on the definition of law."
Daniels said the OMH was specific in its directions to SLS.
"Both the Office of Mental Health and the Commission on Quality of Care and Advocacy for Persons with Disabilities have given SLS very clear direction on the definition of and policy around restraint since the issue first came up in 2005," she wrote.
Santoro said SLS patients - called members - are young adults with serious issues, sometimes worsened by substance abuse.
"These are members with serious problems and emotional distress who sometimes try to hurt themselves physically to distract from the emotional pain. The staff has to intervene and may hold on to them to stop them from hurting themselves or to break up a fight. A restraint may last a few seconds up to 10 minutes," Santoro said.
He said patients weren't allowed to roam unsupervised off-site for fear that some who abuse substances may chose to do that while taking prescription medicine and could end up hospitalized. Certain members are not allowed to call their families because they will only get into fights, he said.
He said SLS has clients from all over the country, some of whom pay out of pocket, and that clients have included family members of prominent people. He also said they have people whose insurance covers the cost and that some patients are sent there by other states, including Connecticut.
"The families and the insurance companies wouldn't tolerate sub-standard care and neither would we," he said.
Santoro said SLS was surprised at the license revocations.
"On their last site visit in May, they said there were no significant problems. Then all of a sudden - boom! - we don't like what you've done. I truly believe there was a relationship" between the revocation and SLS appealing the fines in court, he said.
Again, Daniels rejected this argument.
"The findings of the OMH visit this past May are incorporated in the letter from OMH to SLS, dated Aug. 29. The revocation of SLS operating certificates is in no way retaliatory for their exercising their rights to challenge the fines in court."
Other allegations by the OMH include that Santoro and staff lied to the OMH that a patient, Evan Marshall, was not receiving SLS services when he went home on a weekend pass and killed his mother's Long Island neighbor. Marshall, 32, is serving 29 years to life.
Santoro said they never testified that Marshall was not an SLS patient at the time, only that he was in a different program.
Although money spent on legal fees could have gone toward the $110,000 fines, Santoro said it was about "principle."
"It affects the welfare and safety of patients throughout the entire state. OMH has an obligation to define its regulations," he said.
He also noted that SLS has been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities, a private, not-for-profit organization that has established standards of quality.
Glen Feinberg, a Pleasantville lawyer who went to court to win the right to protest outside SLS sites over the poor treatment he thought his son got there in 2001 and 2002, said Santoro's statements appeared to refute testimony at the OMH hearing.
"There was nothing ambiguous in the fact that OMH ordered SLS to stop restraining patients. SLS repeatedly promised to stop and then continued doing the things that OMH told them were specifically illegal," Feinberg said.
SLS is also the plaintiff in a multimillion-dollar federal class-action lawsuit by two ex-patients who allege that SLS violated their rights.
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