Saying that they didn’t know enough about the progress being made toward certifying the county’s psychiatric facility at the Meadowview Hospital Campus in Secaucus, the Hudson County Freeholders tabled a resolution recently that approved another year’s operations there.
The facility’s psychiatric and other services are run by contractor Correctional Health Services, and a firm called Janus Solutions has been assigned to oversee accreditation. Approximately 80 people live in the psychiatric facility.
“We have numerous questions that still haven’t been answered,” said Freeholder Bill O’Dea during a telephone interview.
These questions include whether or not the facility has met the accreditation standards the county has been seeking to obtain since 1995, and whether or not there is a conflict of interest between Correctional Health Services and Janus Solutions.
O’Dea also raised some questions about the level of care at the facility, since a 2001 study done by Janus Solutions showed significant problems in operations at the facility – including the alleged overmedication of patients, lack of therapeutic programs, lack of accountability, and various health and operational violations.
The 2001 report was particularly critical of Hudson County Psychiatric Associates, a firm owned by Dr. Oscar Sandoval that had the largest of various contracts for treatment and therapy of patients at the facility.
Last year, those contracts were awarded to Correctional Health Services, whose president – former County Administrator Geoffrey Perselay – has also represented Janus Solutions in obtaining contracts with Hudson County.
The report issued by Janus Solutions in August 2001 may also have played a part in Sandoval’s losing the contract.
Sandoval has since become a cooperating witness in an investigation of former county executive Robert Janiszewski, who pleaded guilty to extortion. Sandoval allegedly had passed him bribes.
Perselay, along with former CHS president Robert Detore, were both given detailed messages concerning this story and questions raised, but had not responded by press time. Perselay, who as president of CHS and independently has obtained numerous other contracts with Hudson County institutions, routinely does not respond the press.
Was it a Janiszewski plot?
During a telephone interview last week, Sandoval raised serious questions as to whether or not the Janus Solution report was an effort by Former County Executive Robert Janiszewski to strike back at him. In May 1999, Sandoval told federal authorities that Janiszewski was extorting money from him to keep these contracts. Over the next year and a half, Sandoval cooperated with a sting operation that eventually led to Janiszewski’s arrest in November 2000.
A month after Janiszewski’s arrest – and while Janiszewski was still operating at county executive under the supervision of federal agents – Janus Solutions began its review of Sandoval’s operations at Meadowview. “Perselay was Janiszewski’s right hand man,” Sandoval claimed in a phone interview last week.
Perselay ceased to be an employee of Hudson County in 1995, at which time he began to act as a special consultant for firms doing business in Hudson County. During that year, the county sold off its geriatric operations at Meadowview to Progressive Healthcare, and awarded contracts to outside firms like Sandoval’s to take up operations at the psychiatric hospital.
“Before we came on, the hospital was in shambles,” Sandoval said last week. “We were brought on to cleanup the mess.”
Slightly before this, Janus Solutions was brought on to help the psychiatric facility get back its state accreditation. “We actually began work in full in 1995 and 1996,” said Janus Solutions President Tom Blatner.
Prior to 1995, the hospital was closed for admission, had lost its state funding and license, and was not certified by the Federal Health Care Finance Administrator or the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.
Was the Janus investigation out of character?
During the five years up until the 2001 report, Janus Solutions successfully brought the hospital back, slightly coaching the staff through HCFA certification and rewriting the hospital procedure manuals. They also assisted the hospital through the first phase of the JCAHO accreditation.
Sandoval claimed the 2001 report on the psychiatric services was out of character for the work Janus Solutions was doing, and he complained about it to the freeholders at the time.
O’Dea said he recalled Sandoval coming before the freeholders’ Healthcare Committee to complain about the matter.
Claiming he sensed a potential bias in the Janus Solutions investigation, Sandoval said had tried to do a report of his own, but the hospital administration – answerable to Janiszewski – would not allow Sandoval to interview other doctors, nurses and staff at the hospital.
“We could not review them at the hospital, and I had to bring them to my office,” Sandoval said. “We were also not allowed to look at patients’ records.”
Janus Solutions, however, had full access.
“This was an ambush of my department,” Sandoval claimed last week.
Indeed, the Janus Report admitted it had not examined the other contracted psychiatrist at the facility, The Rossi Group.
“But I did review the contract between the County of Hudson and Hudson County Psychiatric Associates,” said Dr. Jeffrey Geller in a report. Geller was one of the people hired by Janus Solutions for the review.
Sandoval said he believed Janiszewski had quietly ordered his staff to find a way to fire him. Indeed, the timing of the report and investigation seemed to bear out his claim. Janus Solutions began to investigate operations in December 2000, a month after Janiszewski learned that Sandoval had been instrumental in his arrest. Although wired as part of federal sting during the first nine months of 2001, Janiszewski continued on as county executive – directing county operations.
Freeholder pressure may have generated report
The investigation and report, however, came at a time when Janus Solutions was being pressed by the freeholders to justify more than five years of hefty contracts, or face removal.
In December 2000, O’Dea and Freeholder Nidia Davila-Colon (who was in a romantic relationship with Sandoval) called for a review of the process and asked for reports from the last five years to determine what progress had been made in bringing the facility up to standards, and why Janus had not succeeded in doing so in more than five years.
When told that the hospital would face accreditation in June 2001, the freeholders issued a six-month extension of Janus’ contract. But when the June deadline came, Janus Solutions cancelled the accreditation claiming significant deficiencies at the facility. The freeholders suspended Janus contract in July 2001.
Janus, facing increasing criticism from the board of freeholders for canceling the accreditation process, presented their report critical of Sandoval’s operations to the health committee in August. 2001. After Janiszewski resigned amid growing allegations that he had taken bribes, Sandoval lost the contract in fall 2001.
Although suspended from working at Meadowview for more than a year, Janus Solutions was later retained again to complete the accreditation process.
After Sandoval’s removal, the county hired CHS to operate the facility until new bids could be issued and CHS was later awarded the contracts to continue operating the hospital.
“What we need to know before we go on from here is where we stand right now,” O’Dea said during a telephone interview last week. “Every year this time, we usually pass a resolution that allows the hospital to keep operating. I asked that resolution to be held up until we can determined where we are in regards to the JACHO certification. Where we are going with the facility? And what restructuring has been done in regard to the administration? I also want to know what role Janus or CHS has played in resolving any of the problems it outlined in its report.”