Council presses DBH and St. Elizabeth's on staffing, incident reporting and medication management

Multiple councilmembers described prior witness testimony that raised concerns about medication errors, misdiagnoses, staff identification and alleged incidents at St. Elizabeth's Hospital. Mark Chastang, the hospital CEO (introduced by DBH), and DBH leadership said they have prioritized operational and clinical fixes, including an inventory tracking system, staffing configuration reviews, and improvements to supply chains and security. Chastang told the committee he would share the hospital’s operational "hit list" with DBH and provide the committee with follow‑up.

Councilmembers asked for data on overdoses and on the use of medical or chemical restraints. St. Elizabeth's representatives said their internal reporting shows "no reported overdoses for the last 24 months" and offered to share the underlying incident data, while acknowledging that isolated events outside best practices would be investigated. The hospital said it administers approximately 800,000 medication doses annually and that incident reporting, incident follow‑ups, and a clinical committee oversee medication management. DBH committed to biweekly meetings with Deputy Mayor Turnage and union leaders and to provide periodic readouts to the committee. "We can provide updates," Basron said of the joint monitoring meetings and committed to share the hospital's corrective‑action tracking with the Committee.