The acting head of Maryland’s main state-run mental hospital resigned last week, according to an internal memo obtained by The Baltimore Sun, months after his predecessor’s ousting and at the conclusion of an independent evaluation of the psychiatric facility’s leadership.

Dwain Shaw, who became acting CEO of the state’s Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center last year when the facility’s CEO was terminated, resigned Thursday, according to the email sent to Maryland Department of Health employees the following day. Nisha Madhavan, the maximum-security facility’s former nursing director, immediately became the hospital’s acting CEO on Friday, the email said.

A voicemail left at the psychiatric facility’s CEO’s office Wednesday was not returned. Shaw, who was listed in 2023 state payroll records as the health department’s deputy director of hospitals, did not return requests for comment.

Both the outgoing and incoming acting executives had signed a peace order application that ultimately led to the ousting of the troubled hospital’s former head, Scott Moran, who was terminated last year and lost his license. Maryland Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott said in Friday’s email that a permanent CEO for the troubled hospital, Dr. Aliya Jones, would start in February.

The staffing shake-up comes nearly a year after Shaw and Madhavan filed a peace order against Perkins’ then-CEO, Scott Moran, alleging that Moran was harassing health department employees over the internet. The allegations ultimately led to Moran’s ousting and the psychiatrist’s medical license being suspended. Shaw, who was the acting CEO of Spring Grove Hospital Center when he filed the peace order application, was picked as Perkins’ acting CEO in the aftermath.

Meanwhile, the state’s health department agreed to an independent evaluation of the hospital, which was expected to be completed Jan. 1. Scott, the health secretary, pledged to release “key findings” of the report while being prodded by Maryland lawmakers in December at a joint panel hearing on oversight and myriad other issues at the facility.

Scott, who was appointed by Gov. Wes Moore in 2023 to lead the health department, said during that hearing that she had “received a very broken agency” on the heels of former Gov. Larry Hogan’s administration and had been misled about problems with the facility. She described a 2023 visit to the facility as “very staged.”

Moran, a former command psychiatrist for the U.S. Army’s Special Operations Command, began serving as Clifton T. Perkins’ clinical director in 2019, during Hogan’s administration.

Scott said the hospital’s leadership, including its CEO, facilities director and “a deputy secretary,” were “not only not advising me well, but were misrepresenting the facts of what was happening in the facilities.” All of those employees “are now gone,” she said.

But problems, such as a decline in staffing and poor working conditions, continued under Shaw as well as a backlog of incarcerated patients waiting to be admitted to the state’s psychiatric care facilities. The forensic psychiatric hospital in Jessup primarily houses people accused or convicted of committing violent felonies.

AFSCME Council 3 President Patrick Moran said in a statement that the union, which represents Clifton T. Perkins employees, was “happy that action was taken” and that Shaw was no longer working there.

“However, more work needs to be done throughout the system to address the staffing crisis and workplace safety issues our members are facing so that they can deliver high quality patient care,” Moran said in the written statement. He added that the union was working closely with the health department during the transitional period to “hold people accountable” before Jones takes over.

State payroll records indicate that Jones was once deputy secretary of the Health Department’s Behavioral Health Administration. Her LinkedIn profile notes a similar role at Luminis Health as her current occupation.

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