SALT LAKE CITY — A bill that puts more regulations on Utah's "troubled teen" facilities is advancing in the state legislature.
A hearing for Senate Bill 297 featured testimony from grieving parents who lost children, people who said they have suffered abuses and those who said they have benefited from treatment for mental health and substance abuse issues that they received in these facilities.
"Imagine for just a moment what it’s like to be me right now," Katy Silvers, whose teenage son, Baruk, died in a Utah congregate care facility, told the Senate Judiciary Committee. "My son is dead. His siblings will never see their little brother again. His cries for help were ignored. And we, his parents, were left in the dark."
She accused the facility of not appropriately monitoring her child and urged the Senate committee to pass SB297, which would put more oversight on these businesses. The bill also creates an ombudsman to take complaints and offers whistleblower protections.
"There have been at least seven deaths in Utah congregate care facilities. Many of these deaths were preventable. We’re also seeing a concerning trend," said SB297's sponsor, Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork.
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The head of the pediatric behavioral unit at Primary Children's Hospital testified that they took care of 169 children last year from congregate care facilities, which eats up precious bed space. The hospital has been forced to deny care to children from Utah who need it because the space is taken by children brought in to a facility that is already supposed to be offering treatment.
"We understand and recognize the congregate care industry exists to help kids," Choudhary testified. "However, it’s our responsibility to make sure the organizations bringing behaviorally complex children to Utah don’t place undue burned on Utah’s hospitals, emergency department and mental health system, delaying and denying mental health access for Utah’s kids."
The bill includes a provision for fees to be assessed on congregate care facilities for the hospital stays.
SB297 builds off of prior legislation taking aim at "troubled teen" facilities across the state. One proponent of such legislation, the celebrity Paris Hilton, wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee urging its passage.
"We must act swiftly and decisively to close the gaps that continue to put children in residential treatment facilities in grave danger," Hilton wrote in the letter obtained by FOX 13 News on Friday.
But the room was filled with people who work in congregate care facilities or said they benefited from treatment. Many sported green ribbons for mental health awareness.
"I genuinely would not be here without the help of these facilities," said Meg Ortiz, who spoke against the bill.
Layne Bagley, who represented many of the facilities, offered sympathy to the families of those who had lost loved ones during his testimony to the committee.
"I just want to share with you as an industry our deepest sympathies. We’re truly sorry for the losses you’ve suffered," he said, while also asking the committee for more time to negotiate the bill.
Senators signaled their support for more compromise legislation.
"I'll be supportive of the bill. I think there’s a little work that needs to be done on it," said Sen. Brady Brammer, R-Highland.
The bill passed out of committee unanimously. Caroline Lorson, who said she was a survivor of a treatment facility, said she was glad to see it pass.
"We want to make sure that every kid is safe in treatment," she told FOX 13 News. "That every family that turns to residential treatment isn’t going to get that phone call that their child has died."
Read Paris Hilton's letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee here:
