Five lawsuits alleging child abuse have been filed against Southwood Psychiatric Hospital.
HKM Employment Attorneys brought the lawsuits on behalf of patients they say suffered physical and sexual abuse from staff members at the facility.
Some of the boy and girl patients were as young as 10 when the assaults happened, attorneys allege.
Our requests for comment from Southwood were not returned Thursday.
According to a release from HKM, the plaintiffs were seeking treatment for mental health issues or disabilities.
In some cases, the children’s guardians were notified of the abuse, but Southwood prevented them from seeing their children, HKM says.
One lawsuit alleges that a plaintiff was restrained and raped multiple times by a staff member.
The five lawsuits accuse Southwood of negligence while raising concerns about understaffing and failure to utilize available safety mechanisms.
“When our clients entered Southwood, there was an obvious power imbalance at play,” HKM’s release says. “They left the facility worse off and are still grappling with the lifelong effects of the trauma they were forced to endure there. We commend them for having the courage to come forward and look forward to helping give them a voice in hopes of preventing similar failures.”
“These kids and their parents were desperate for help,” said Amy Mathieu of HKM Employment Attorneys. “They were not cared for, they were not watched, and the abuse that occurred there has left them in a worse position than when they entered the facility.”
One case alleges a 17-year-old boy was held down and sexually assaulted by a man who worked there. That worker is accused of going into the boy’s room after the boy had taken medications, which made him drowsy.
Other lawsuits detail victims raped by other patients, who attorneys said, were high-risk patients with different treatment plans and diagnoses than their roommates.
“As the complaints detail, they were all housed together a lot of times, and that age range alone created some problems between the kids,” Mathieu said. “We have seen a pattern of allowing this to happen at Southwood. Some of these cases range all the way back to 2011 and continue all the way until 2024, so nothing has changed, despite these kids coming forward at the time.”
It’s the latest round of lawsuits against Southwood, which operates its psychiatric hospital in Upper Saint Clair, as well as a specialized treatment facility in North Strabane Township.
Channel 11’s reports from 2023 are mentioned in one of the lawsuits, detailing the physical abuse of patients at the hands of a staff member.
That year, a staff member was charged with kicking a young patient in the head. That case remains pending in the Court of Common Pleas of Washington County.
RELATED COVERAGE >>> Mother of former patient at Southwood Psychiatric Hospital speaks out after staff member charged
At the time, one mother, who wanted to remain anonymous, shared pictures with Channel 11 of the abuse, she said, her child endured. The lawsuit says Southwood failed to make necessary changes to protect their patients. Attorneys are encouraging other victims to come forward.
“It is traumatizing, and going through this process can also be re-traumatizing. Having to talk about what happened to them over and over again is not an easy task, especially for a child. So these are really brave, strong kids that have come forward,” Mathieu said.
HKM filed a similar lawsuit against Southwood in July of last year. That case — which alleges that negligent conduct led to the rape of a 10-year-old patient — is ongoing.
A spokesperson from Southwood Children’s Behavioral Healthcare sent Channel 11 the following statement:
“For more than 40 years, Southwood Children’s Behavioral Healthcare has served children and adolescents facing complex and acute behavioral health challenges as the region’s only hospital dedicated exclusively to their care. As a fully licensed and independently accredited inpatient treatment center, we maintain a zero-tolerance policy for any behavior that compromises patient care and take any allegation of misconduct seriously.
“We will not comment on threatened litigation. Any claims will be addressed through the appropriate legal process.”
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