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Gov. JB Pritzker signed off on the measure, which also increases
the range of penalties that the Health Care Worker Registry can
administer for violators after the Office of Inspector General (OIG)
has made them aware of such infractions.
The legislation comes after a pattern of abuse and cover-ups at
Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center were uncovered.
The state-run institution is home to individuals suffering from
intellectual and developmental disabilities and mental
illnesses.
The new law extends to workers at state-run institutions as well
as those at privately operated community agencies that function
under the supervision of OIG officials and the Illinois
Department of Human Services (IDHS).
The registry will identify health care workers prohibited from
working with vulnerable populations in any long-term care
setting, adding “material obstruction” of an investigation to
the list of findings that can be reported.
Pritzker inked the bill on the same day IDHS released a 34-page
report calling for a “top to bottom analysis” of all processes
associated with the reporting of abuse and neglect at Choate
“because at the present time there appear to be fundamental
problems with all aspects of that system.”
The OIG report made direct mention of a 2014 incident at Choate,
where an individual with a developmental disability was beaten
by four mental health technicians, ending with each of them
being charged with felony offenses. Three of them also pleaded
guilty to failing to comply with abuse reporting laws for state
employees, and mental health technician Mark Allen ultimately
pleaded guilty to felony obstruction of justice.
All told, at least eight people were found to have colluded to
obstruct the state police and OIG investigation.
“This was a textbook example of a code of silence, in which
staff seek to protect each other from the consequences of their
misconduct by remaining silent about what they witnessed or
lying to protect their fellow employees,” the new OIG report
stated.
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