Indy mental health facility was ‘kennel for vulnerable people,’ patient says
INDIANAPOLIS (MIRROR INDY) — Paige Dufour wanted to go home, but they wouldn’t let her.
Instead, staff at Options Behavioral Health Hospital handed the 39-year-old a sheet of paper, some crayons and instructions to draw her feelings. Dufour drew a crying face, one that matched her own.
Later, she said a mental health technician came into her room and tore up the drawing, sprinkling the shreds into the trash.
“They’re watching everything that you do,” Dufour recalled him saying. “If you keep crying and making things like this, they’re going to keep you longer.”
It was Dufour’s second full day at the Lawrence mental health facility, where she said she was held against her will for nearly six days in March.
She had voluntarily checked herself in after experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. But she soon grew concerned about the facility’s practices. She said staff berated her, threatened her when she tried to leave and coerced her to strip naked for photos.
“It was a kennel for vulnerable people,” Dufour said.
These are just some of the details Dufour shared in an interview with Mirror Indy. Dufour has obtained attorneys and is now pursuing damages against Acadia Healthcare, which operates 50 psychiatric hospitals across the country, including Options Behavioral Health Hospital and two other locations in the Indianapolis area.
Dufour is not alone. An investigation this month by The New York Times detailed a disturbing pattern of the company detaining patients like Dufour when it wasn’t medically necessary — only to release them once their insurance ran out. The investigation found dozens of reports of people under Acadia’s care being raped, assaulted, denied medications or held against their will. The Times also reported that Acadia is being investigated by the Department of Justice.
“It’s really important to me that the people of Marion County understand this place exists to prey on them,” Dufour said. “They don’t exist to help people. They are there to generate value for shareholders.”
Dufour and her husband filed a complaint with the Indiana Department of Insurance on Sept. 11. They are seeking civil damages for physical injuries and emotional distress.
Tim Blair, a spokesperson for Acadia, said its Lawrence facility has not been served with any legal documents. He declined to comment on Dufour’s allegations, citing patient privacy laws.
“Our commitment to the highest standards of care and integrity remains steadfast,” Blair wrote in an email to Mirror Indy.
But Dufour said that was not her experience.
‘I was really scared’
Dufour’s nightmare began on March 18.
While experiencing a mental health crisis, she drove from her Noblesville home to IU Health North Hospital in Carmel. She said the emergency department referred her to Options Behavioral Health in Lawrence.
Dufour voluntarily agreed to stay for up to three days, she said, saying goodbye to her husband and two young sons. She hoped to come back to them in a better headspace.
Doctors can hold people against their will to stabilize them when they are a threat to themselves and others. But Dufour, who has received treatment for anxiety and depression in the past, said she never saw a psychiatrist during her time at the facility and was not evaluated.
A nurse practitioner also recommended that Options release Dufour earlier, according to the complaint.
“I was not a danger to myself at that point,” Dufour said. “I was really scared.”
She had already verbally requested to leave multiple times. When she began filling out a form to document her request, a staff member said the facility would seek a two-week court order to keep her there, according to the complaint. Dufour felt threatened and rescinded her request.
Meanwhile, Options was able to bill Dufour’s insurance for a five-day stay at the facility, her lawyers said, totaling $15,000.
IU Health declined to answer questions posed by Mirror Indy, including whether the hospital chain is continuing to refer patients to Acadia facilities.
Dufour also reported her experience to the Joint Commission, a nonprofit that accredits thousands of health care organizations, including Options Behavioral Health. Records show the nonprofit evaluated the facility in April — in the month after Dufour’s stay — and found that Options was at risk of losing accreditation because it did not comply with standards required by the federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare.
Patients fear assault and going hungry
Dufour had no idea seeking help would lead to more trauma.
She described going hungry most days because staff did not accommodate the dietary restrictions that her doctor had previously ordered. She tried to read the romance novel her husband left with her, but couldn’t process the words under the fluorescent lights.
Patients were forced to keep the doors to their room open at all times, she said, even though it was a mixed gender floor and there was not a call-button for emergencies.
Dufour stayed awake, afraid someone would enter her room and assault her — especially after the violating photos from her first day.
Justin Kuhn, a Cohen & Malad LLP attorney who is representing Dufour, said the photos were especially concerning because the facility did not return them with Dufour’s medical records and could not tell her where they were.
“I have never seen photos, certainly not naked photos of a patient, taken for no medical reason and not to document a specific medical issue,” Kuhn told Mirror Indy.
Kuhn and Chad Bradford, another of the firm’s medical malpractice attorneys, said they have heard from other people whose stories mirror Dufour’s, including three others in Indianapolis, as well as people from Missouri, Texas and Arkansas.
“It takes a lot of courage to seek out mental health care in the first place,” Bradford said. “When (patients) step out and take this leap of faith to get help and this is what they’re put through, it’s very hard, if not impossible, to take the steps to get care next time.”
What would happen to them?
Dufour finally left the facility on March 23. It was the fifth full day — the exact amount of time that her insurance company had agreed to pay to Options.
Her husband came to pick her up. Her two boys hugged her and that’s when she knew she wanted to burn her clothes: “I don’t want anything from this place to touch you.”
She washed her hair over and over again in the shower.
Her sons crawled into bed with her, channel surfing until they found “101 Dalmatians.” They clung to her, but she didn’t sleep.
She said there were other people at the facility who were more vulnerable. She’d met them. Some wouldn’t have jobs or a home after being detained for weeks. She watched as their mental health, already on the edge, worsened under Options’ care. Someone’s child, sibling, partner, best friend was still locked away.
What would happen to them?
Mirror Indy reporter Mary Claire Molloy covers health. Reach her at 317-721-7648 or email maryclaire.molloy@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X @mcmolloy7.