ABC57 investigates allegations against Praxis treatment center in Mishawaka

 

ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, Ind. - The fight with addiction is a constant battle within.

Taking the first step and admitting you have a problem is a major obstacle to overcome, and having support is a key component in defeating the disease.

Many of those who went to Praxis in Mishawaka for that support feel the facility failed them, leaving them on a rough road to recovery.

St. Joseph County Police, ex-employees and former patients are all applying pressure to shut down the Praxis landmark Recovery center permanently.

Kelsey Farver worked at Praxis and was part of the original staff that opened the facility in August 2022.

“I want this place shut down, it needs shut down,” she said. “It's not a treatment facility. It ruins lives.”

Two hundred and seventeen emergency calls were made just this year, including reports of overdoses, multiple rapes and a violent stabbing.

The St. Joseph County Police Department calling this facility a strain on the department, prompting a call for it to shut down.

Three patients getting treatment at Praxis in Mishawaka died within a week in early July.

St. Joseph County Sheriff Bill Redman released a statement on July 13th saying, “regarding the three recent deaths at Landmark Recovery (Praxis), we want the public to know our department has repeatedly attempted to work with the Praxis staff and the Landmark Recovery corporate administration since August 2022...One of the final and most frustrating aspects has been the lack of cooperation and respect for our responding officers.”

On the same day – St. Joseph County Police public information liaison Troy Warner sent an email to the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration stating, “In our opinion, facility is vastly understaffed, under secured, and the facility is dangerous. Praxis typically have 125-160 patients and less than 15 staff. Praxis has zero security measures, no one coming or going is checked for drugs or weapons.”

County authorities called for the revocation of the Mishawaka facility's license.

St. Joseph County Police releasing call logs and redacted incident reports from emergency calls at Praxis.

The documents shed light on incidents that led county officials to take action.

Former employees standing in solidarity with the patients have expressed their support for the center's closure.

Among those voices is Cheryl Hollingsworth, a former Assistant Director of Nursing at Praxis.

A recovering addict herself, Cheryl played an instrumental role in the facility's mission: to take on the poorest patients relying on Medicaid for payment.

She revealed serious shortcomings.

“We were not prepared to open,” Hollingsworth said. “Okay, when we did, we didn't have cameras, we did not have any security, the nurse's stations were open.”

She says the facility's chronic understaffing created a volatile and unsafe working environment.

“The patients were kind of running the show, if you will,” she said. “And because, I mean, we couldn't be everywhere and being so short staffed.”

Cheryl says there were also problems with medication administration.

Detoxing patients faced delays in receiving crucial medication, leading to unnecessary suffering and complications.

“Patients could wait days, you know, they needed their medication, you know, now,” Hollingsworth said.

And she claims contacting the police required asking higher ups slowing intervention in critical situations.

“We basically had to get permission to call the police,” she said

As state officials moved closer to shutting down the troubled facility, former employees and patients started speaking out, and some even took legal action.

On July 26th, ABC57 News obtained a copy of a lawsuit filed at the St. Joseph County Courthouse on behalf of nine former Praxis patients, citing allegations of endangerment, medical malpractice and negligence and seeking punitive damages.

The patients' lawyer, Trevor Crossen, believes the problems at Praxis stem from being understaffed, fostering a toxic environment and having poorly trained employees.

“The screening process is where it all starts with these facilities,” Crossen said. “And the screening process from what we understand was headquartered out of Houston, done via zoom, so none of the potential patients were adequately screened, adequately patted down for drugs.”

Ben Stiener is one of the former patients involved in the lawsuit.

A Marine veteran and a business owner, he entered the facility on June 2nd, seeking help for mental health and addiction issues.

But he faced significant challenges.

“I never saw a doctor the entirety of my stay there,” Stiener said. “I saw my therapist for the first time, two weeks and I saw her one more time five days after that and then my final appointment with her was cancelled...The mental aspect of it was just completely pushed aside the entire time.”

Ben says patients were left to handle violent incidents on their own with no staff intervention.

“If a situation like that came up, it was up to patients to police ourselves and do what needed to be done,” he said.

Joshua Harver was a patient at Praxis in early July when three people died there.

He tells us when someone died, all the patients were isolated to another wing and no staff was there with them.

Joshua still has trouble processing what he went through.

“I'm having nightmares,” he said. “I don't sleep much. If I get two hours of sleep a night, it's a good night.”

He told us he personally broke up two fights because staff just stood by and watched.

“One of them was two patients fighting over romantic involvement was one of the staff members was the first one,” Harver said. “The second one I couldn't tell you what it was over. I just knew that I had to break it up because no one else was going to.”

Both former patients claim their experiences at Praxis made getting and staying sober even harder.

“It made the path to recovery very, very difficult,” Harver said.

“You're not in there just playing a game, you're fighting for your life,” Stiener said.

The Praxis facility in Mishawaka and two others had their licenses revoked by the state of Indiana on July 26th and closed their doors on August 3rd, forcing out hundreds of patients and workers furloughed.

CEO Matt Boyle then announced a petition to reverse the license revocation on August 4th, telling ABC57 news the following:

“On Friday August 4, 2023, Landmark Recovery of Carmel LLC filed a petition to stay and reverse the decision of the Indiana DMHA to revoke certification of our facilities in Carmel, Bluffton, and Mishawaka. We believe the facts gathered in the petition tell, for the first time, the true story of what happened.”

Internal email communications from Boyle, shared with ABC57 news by multiple sources, contained strong language and accusations against St. Joseph County Sheriff Bill Redman, the state and former employees, characterizing them as liars.

The email starting with, “we are at war”.

We reached out to Boyle but he declined to comment for this story.

The road to recovery from addiction is challenging and leaving treatment can be risky for many patients.

Joshua Harver remains on his path to recovery, determined to overcome the obstacles he faced during his time at the Mishawaka Praxis facility.

“It was my first time in treatment and glad to say I'm still sober today,” he said.

The attorney representing the nine patients, Trevor Crossen, told ABC57 news that more former patients have reached out and the number of plaintiffs has grown to 37.

ABC57 will follow the pending lawsuit, as well as the petition to reverse the state's decision to revoke the praxis licenses.