Report Faults Employees At Mental Hospital
BALTIMORE (AP) -- A state report is faulting employees at Maryland's maximum-security psychiatric hospital for their behavior during the strangulation of a patient last September.
The report says staffers at Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center in Jessup were inattentive, slept on the job and lied about
checking on patients.
Video surveillance showed that one staff member was sitting on a couch with no view of patients' rooms as the killing unfolded. Another was seated at the nursing station but didn't move, and a third could not be accounted for.
El-Soudani El-Wahhabi, 50, has been charged with the strangulation death of fellow patient Susan Sachs and is awaiting trial. In response to the report, officials at Perkins say they've increased staffing in the medium-security ward where Sachs was killed and stepped up oversight of nightshift employees.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
