A reluctant crusader

STAUNTON—Lyn McDonald Hall is a reluctant crusader. She craves the normalcy that might bore others. Bipolar disorder—also called manic depression—does that to a person.

She is fiercely private and is content to just walk her yellow Labrador retriever, play with her grandchildren and work as an interpreter for the deaf at Western State Hospital in Staunton.

Hall, 60, was diagnosed in 1987 with bipolar disorder after being misdiagnosed for years with schizophrenia.

“Being bipolar and raising four kids is a challenge,” she says. “But it never occurred to me to not get them up and ready for school, to make them dinner, to keep a clean house. In West Texas, we have a saying, ‘Root hog, or die.’ We’re tough.”

Hall’s tenacity was forged not only by years of battling mental illness, but also by the shooting of her son by an off-duty Texas police officer and the surprise departure of her husband on their 19th wedding anniversary.

She was a Fort Worth, Texas, housewife who lived an extremely comfortable life with a husband who was an American Airlines manager. After he left in 1993, she spent three years in the Dallas area and then sold her belongings, including her bed sheets and towels, and moved to Virginia on her own with nothing that wouldn’t fit in her car.

She landed in Staunton in 1996 and started a new life, centered on her work at Western State. Other than one 19-day hospital stay after a severe reaction to a medication, Hall has been happy and stable. Two years ago, she married a childhood friend from Texas.

“I consider it the West Texas mindset,” she says. “I’m very determined to be well, determined to be productive, determined to have quality of life.

“When I first came here, I was in government-subsidized housing and public assistance. And I said, ‘I will not accept this. There’s a better life for me through working.’ ”

After her husband walked out on her, Hall fell back on the signing skills she had learned 10 years earlier to communicate with a friend at church. She became director of the deaf program at Green Oaks Hospital in Dallas. Then she took those skills to Western State.

“I consider it a great gift in my life,” Hall says. “Being able to communicate with a deaf person is intensely satisfying.”

In 2002, she was selected to serve as a member of the Valley Local Human Rights Committee, a body empaneled by the state Human Rights Committee to protect the rights of mental- health patients and consumers.

After one year as a member, Hall was elected chair of the local committee.

“She’s fabulous, a wonderful advocate, very knowledgeable,” says Margaret Walsh, director of the Office of Human Rights under the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services. “Lyn is a delight. I think very highly of her.”

Hall left the local committee last year as its chair after Walsh’s office discovered that state employees within her agency cannot serve on Local Human Rights Committees. As a Western State worker, Hall is a state employee.

“Her participation was exemplary,” Walsh says of Hall.

Across Virginia, there are about 65 Local Human Rights Committees and 450 volunteer members. They hear grievances from patients in the areas of mental health, mental retardation and substance-abuse treatment. Health-care providers either have to follow the local committee’s recommendations or appeal to the state committee.

The teeth behind Virginia’s human-rights laws, however, are attorneys who work for the Virginia Office of Protection and Advocacy. An independent agency, it can drag wayward mental-health providers into court.

Agency attorney Dana Traynham of Charlottesville has known Hall nearly five years. “She is very honest, and she is very concerned about this population, herself being part of this population.

“She is an avid advocate; she’s tenacious; she won’t back down.”

In the spring of 2003, Hall was hospitalized at Crossroads, the psychiatric unit at Augusta Medical Center. She suffered a severe reaction to a medication—Topamax—that she had tried because another medication had caused her to gain 50 pounds. Hall says 3 percent of patients on Topamax have the reaction, which for her consisted of great swings of mania and depression.

She stayed 19 days at Crossroads and says she was released the day her insurance ran out.

After her release, she filed a grievance with the Office of Protection and Advocacy. Her allegations included that patient confidentiality routinely was violated because the doctor spoke to patients in front of their roommates; patients were denied time outdoors; and patients were treated without their informed consent because they were groggy during early consultations with the doctor.

Hall’s complaints were upheld, and she settled her grievance with Crossroads after the facility let her lead a human-rights training session for staff.

Crossroads’ contract psychiatrist Timothy Kane conceded to an investigating attorney that his actions violated Hall’s and others’ privacy rights. He apologized to Hall and pledged to speak with patients only in private.

Kane has refused to respond to many interview requests over the past year.

“I could have sued them,” Hall says. “I’m not vindictive. Many of the Crossroads staff treated me very well, and I appreciate all they did for me. The problem was the doctor and the policies and procedures. They had staff there that was wonderful. We need this hospital, but we need it to be good.”

On Oct. 3, 2003, the Local Human Rights Committee held its quarterly meeting. Hall, the chair, confronted Crossroads director Pam Davies about alleged human-rights violations at the AMC facility. Hall also admonished Crossroads for releasing some patients too soon and after little to no access to the only doctor.

That’s the meeting where Hall warned Davies that some day a Crossroads patient would kill someone.

“I’m not a crusader,” Hall says. “I didn’t seek anyone out. I didn’t go out beating any drums to get attention for this. Of all the citizens in this community, I am the most ordinary. I hate confrontations, and I cherish my anonymity.

“My sole motive was and is to do the right thing. Three children are dead; three families are devastated.”