Iowa DHS official placed on administrative leave amid federal investigation at Glenwood center

Barbara Rodriguez | The Des Moines Register

Show Caption Hide Caption Severely disabled Iowans die at state facility; staffers blame care. Kathy King, former employee and guardian for two patients at the Glenwood Resource Center, is concerned about the medical care being provided.

The top official at an Iowa institution that provides health care to people with severe intellectual disabilities has been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into the facility on potential federal rights violations, including an allegation involving human experimentation.

Jerry Rea, the superintendent at the state-run Glenwood Resource Center, was placed on administrative leave Monday, according to an email sent to staff and obtained by the Des Moines Register.

The email was sent late Monday afternoon by Kelly Garcia, the director of the Iowa Department of Human Services. The agency oversees the center. Matt Highland, a spokesman for the state agency, confirmed to the Register that Garcia sent the email.

The Glenwood center, in southwest Iowa, provides care to about 250 Iowans with intellectual disabilities, many of whom have other health issues. It has had a history of problems over the years and has seen an uptick in recent deaths.

Rea, who joined Glenwood in 2017, did not respond to a message left Tuesday on a cellphone that he's previously used for work. A staffer at Glenwood directed questions back to Highland. Rea will receive pay during his leave.

Garcia said in the email that Rea was placed on leave “in light of” a federal investigation into conditions at Glenwood.

The Register reported on Dec. 4 that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating whether the state of Iowa engages “in a pattern or practice of violating the federal rights of” Iowans with disabilities at Glenwood “by placing them at serious risk of harm.”

That risk of harm potentially involves “harmful and uncontrolled human subject experiments,” “inadequate medical and nursing care, physical and nutritional management, and behavioral health care,” “needless and harmful restraint practices,” and “incidents causing needless physical injury,” according to a Nov. 21 letter from an assistant U.S. attorney general to Gov. Kim Reynolds. DHS officials received a copy of the letter the next day.

At least one DOJ representative visited Glenwood on Friday. Garcia, who started at DHS on Nov. 1, sent a “team” to Glenwood days earlier to “evaluate operations,” Highland told the Register.

Positions changed, state examination of improvements

Additional information about the scope of the investigation has not been released, but Highland on Tuesday said that a DHS position that oversees mental health and disability services will be divided into two administrator jobs. The person with that position currently, Rick Shults, planned to retire earlier this year but stayed on for several more months.

Under the new positions, one person will oversee community mental health and the other will oversee DHS facilities like Glenwood.

Highland said that DHS will also seek "technical assistance" to look at the agency's processes and practices for recommended improvements.

“We are learning more as the investigation and our response unfolds,” Garcia said in her staff email. “I will continue to keep you updated as we move forward. I understand these are stressful times and appreciate the difficult work you do. Please let us know how we can better support you.”

Marsha Edgington, the superintendent at the state-run Woodward Resource Center, will serve in Rea’s place at Glenwood in the interim.

Federal investigators are also looking at whether the state of Iowa violates the rights of residents at both Glenwood and Woodward under the Americans with Disabilities Act “by not providing services to those residents in the most integrated setting appropriate.”

Staff had warned of care decline

A Register investigation earlier this year found Glenwood employees have repeatedly warned state officials that medical care at the facility has dangerously eroded. Fourteen severely disabled residents died there between June 2018 and April 2019, more than double the usual rate. Seven of those deaths occurred in the first three months of 2019. Disability Rights Iowa has been conducting an internal review of those deaths.

After the Register investigation, the DHS director at the time said: “I’m very confident in the quality of services that we provide there. ... We provide an incredibly good level of care for people that are incredibly fragile.”

Last week, Highland confirmed that three people for whom Glenwood provided care had died in “the past 8 weeks,” but he declined to provide additional information.

Separately, a state audit released Monday concluded that, in fiscal year 2018, staff at Glenwood failed to complete nearly one-third of its staff training programs on time.

Barbara Rodriguez covers health care and politics for the Register. She can be reached by email at bcrodriguez@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8011. Follow her on Twitter @bcrodriguez.

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