By Christopher Osher, Colorado Springs Gazette
and Susan Greene, Colorado News Collaborative
A pattern of “severe life-threatening” prescription errors by the mental health center responsible for treating 10 Western Slope counties put many of its patients at risk, according to the findings of an official investigation that three state agencies withheld from the public for more than nine months.
The problems only came to light this month as reporters for the Colorado News Collaborative were investigating.
State officials kept the June 2021 findings secret despite mounting public concerns about the Grand Junction-based Mind Springs Health and its psychiatric hospital, West Springs. Mind Springs patients remained in the dark even though problems were so acute that the state’s Medicaid contractor would not authorize payment for newly admitted hospital patients for three months until Mind Springs agreed to make wide-ranging changes.
The investigation found that of a sample of 58 Mind Springs outpatient clients, nearly half received a quality of care so poor that it was categorized as having potentially “severe life-threatening impact.” Two patients died.
“If there are things being investigated there and problems being found, the public has a right to know,” says Wendy Wolfe, a Summit County resident whose son has been treated by Mind Springs for more than seven years. “Without public disclosure, how else do we know it’s safe to send our families, our community there?”
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