By Sen. Stacey Guerin

(Editor’s Note: A portion of this radio address appeared in a column the Bangor Daily News.)

Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has been under fire for years since several children died in high-profile cases in 2017 and 2018. Focus on DHHS was renewed in 2021 when 34 children who had some involvement with its Office of Child and Family Services (OCFS) division died that year. Unfortunately, last year wasn’t much better when another 29 children with OCFS involvement died.

However, an investigative report published last week by The Maine Monitor brought to light another issue involving DHHS. This time it’s hundreds of deaths over the past five years involving adult wards of the state under Maine’s Public Guardianship program.

Hello, this is Senator Stacey Guerin representing Piscataquis and Penobscot counties. I thank you for joining me today for our Republican radio address about a very somber topic.

Public guardianship is the final option for debilitated adults who can no longer care for themselves or make their own decisions. Some adults for whom guardians are appointed have simply grown too old, while others may be younger but have an underlying mental incapacitation. In all cases, these adults have no relatives who are able or willing to help with their care.

When people are in this situation, probate judges appoint public guardians employed by DHHS. They make the medical, housing and social decisions for about 1,200 individuals who are currently under public guardianship in Maine. That doesn’t include thousands more where family members have stepped in as guardians, conservators or through a power of attorney to administer a family member’s affairs.

However, the news that Maine’s chief medical examiner found some of the deaths of those under public guardianship questionable is concerning. One of those cases was actually listed by the medical examiner as a homicide.

What’s most disturbing is these deaths only came to light through an accidental release of records by the Maine Attorney General’s office when the news outlet was investigating the impact of Maine’s probate court system on the guardianship program. Otherwise, the public would never have known this situation even existed. Unacceptable.

DHHS deserves all the scrutiny we can muster. With about 3,400 employees, it is by far the executive branch’s largest and most sweeping department through its functions of public and behavioral health, MaineCare, general assistance administration, child care and health care licensing, and protective services for our most vulnerable residents. DHHS serves more than a third of all Mainers directly through MaineCare and commands about a quarter of Maine’s entire General Fund budget.

And taking care of those who are wards of the state is one of those core functions. Yet according to the Monitor’s story, the medical examiner’s office reviewed over 200 deaths of those under public guardianship between 2018 and 2023 and deemed eight as unexplainable, prompting the Maine State Police to open an investigation for at least one of them.

Of the eight, the medical examiner found that five involved overmedication, which led to overdoses or “acute intoxication.” One was classified as a homicide but never prosecuted while another was the result of septic complications. The last case involved a 68-year-old woman who died of a brain bleed at the Maine Veterans’ Home in Scarborough. The cause of her death was officially listed as blunt force trauma.

What concerns me most of all is that DHHS is required to notify the members of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee when such deaths occur. That law was established in 1997, but not a single report has ever been made. Clearly, the law is being ignored.

Still, the Legislature is already investigating the child deaths through our Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability; and we should probably add this to the pile of problems for a department that is obviously too large, too unaccountable and, according to some, should be broken up into smaller, more transparent agencies or have a greater level of oversight.

Either way, we have to force change. DHHS has been failing for years; and burying our heads in the sand and hoping things will change on their own is not an option.

Again, this is Senator Stacey Guerin representing Piscataquis and Penobscot counties. Thank you for listening.

Sen. Stacey Guerin represents District 4, which includes all of Piscataquis County and 11 communities in Penobscot County. She is the Senate Republican Lead for the Legislature’s Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Business Committee.