STATE OFFICE OF MENTAL HEALTH SUBVERTS LOCAL HEALTH´S FACILITY’S RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS
SLS - MENTAL HEALTH FACILITY FIGHTS BACK

The Albany-based Office of Mental Health is attempting to misuse its authority, contends Dr. Joseph Santoro, Vice President of a Putnam County, New York based private mental health facility, SLS Residential, Inc. to the detriment of its patients, their families, employees and the community. Having remained quietly professional for months, SLS Residential is about to fight back.

According to Dr. Santoro, SLS has been in business for over two decades and has been surveyed by OMH’s regional office over 20 times prior to November 2006. For the last year and half, the highly-rated facility with over 2000 patients in its history, has been under attack by the OMH’s central office, characterized by misleading contradictory and adversarial evaluations of SLS’ efforts to meet OMH’s confusing, ad hoc and sometimes, surprising directives. SLS also contends that OMH has been timing various actions deliberately to deprive SLS and its patients of the “due process rights” that New York State law guarantees them.

The last straw was a recent OMH letter, which arrived the day after Labor Day, threatening to revoke SLS’ license of operation coincident with SLS asking the judiciary to order a stay on unfair fines levied against the facility.

Dr. Santoro stated, “This threatens the very individuals that OMH has a commitment to help. Something must be done to a bureaucracy that does not understand the psychological needs of the patients we help daily. We are gratified with the outpouring of support SLS has received from families, former and current patients, fellow professionals and community leaders.”

SLS Residential has avoided responding to previous press reports because of their commitment to patient privacy and Dr. Santoro said, “OMH’s recent actions have left SLS with no other recourse but to go public to make sure that our patients’ health and welfare are maintained even if OMH has another agenda.”

SLS’ programs have never been penalized nor restricted by the OMH before November 2006 and as a matter of fact, that same year, before the OMH’s unscheduled visit, SLS had achieved a 90% success rate. In addition, an independent and highly respected accrediting organization, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) accredited SLS dating back to 1992 and recently (during the OMH decrees) was once again awarded a 3-year accreditation, which is CARF’s highest level.

“It’s clear that professionals in the mental health field who understand patients and the treatment process like CARF, can objectively evaluate our services. This is what we do at SLS – we help patients in need,” further explains Dr. Santoro.

 “OMH’s aggressive position doesn’t make sense either. The only thing I can think of is that the OMH is trying to find our something that doesn’t exist as SLS,” Dr. Santoro added.

            Many former patients and their families and many of our current families and current patients have expressed a great deal of support for SLS.  They do not agree with OMH’s findings and they are very upset with what the blogger has put on his blog.  People from across the country have sent emails thanking us for the help they received from SLS.  They’ve asked us how they can help.  They want a forum where they can speak out and explain how SLS helped them.  Many have blogged the article from the Journal News to express their support of SLS.

            Based on all of these requests we decided to set up this blog for people to express their views of the care they received at SLS and their opinion of the blogger and OMH’s action.  Please keep the words respectful.