State finds psychiatric hospital didn't properly monitor patient who died

As reported in the Boston Globe and elsewhere (see this TV news report as well)

State investigators in Massachusetts have found that a psychiatric hospital did not properly monitor a young woman who was found dead in her locked room last December.

Nora Tosti, 23, who had checked herself into Bournewood Hospital in Brookline for three days of drug treatment, had been dead for nearly six hours when she was found unresponsive Dec. 8, according to an investigation by the state Department of Mental Health reported Thursday by The Boston Globe.

The department's commissioner, Elizabeth Childs, said in a letter this month that Tosti's death might have been prevented if hospital workers had carefully checked her well-being every 30 minutes, the Globe reported.

Childs ordered the hospital to improve its training after state investigators found employees weren't properly trained to perform safety checks and "acted in (a) manner that was dangerous."

Hospital officials did not return several telephone calls seeking comment on Wednesday, the Globe said. In the DMH reports the Globe obtained, hospital workers said they did the required checks on Tosti and reported seeing her stir at 3:45 a.m. She was found dead shortly before 8 a.m. that day.

DMH chief of staff Patricia Mackin said her department, which licenses all psychiatric facilities, reprimanded the hospital, and "within our regulations we feel we took appropriate action."

Tosti's parents, Allan and Barbara Tosti of Arlington, said state officials should have done more.

"I want them to make sure this type of thing won't happen again," Barbara Tosti said.

The medical examiner found Nora Tosti died of chronic drug abuse.

Her family said the finding doesn't make sense because their daughter had been doing well in school and work. She entered the detox program voluntarily after police found drugs in her car during a traffic stop.

Barbara Tosti told the Globe she believes her daughter overdosed, perhaps because she couldn't tolerate hospital medication she was given, or reacted to an anti-anxiety drug found in her bloodsteam after her death. She said a visiting friend may have given that drug to her daughter.

Mackin said the medical examiner did not find evidence of an overdose or that there was a link between friends' visits and Tosti's death

Note that the required checks where supposed to be done every half hour, and that when she was found, she had been dead for an estimated six hours. You can bet there will be a lawsuit in this unfortunate death.