

It's chilling to imagine.


'There's something going on over there, and it's not good,' said Tenaya Farber, one of the former patients. 'It's shady. Something needs to be exposed.'

'I don't know if you know how it feels to be held against your will, but basically, it's terrifying,' said Phoebe Franco, another of the three patients.



'I believe they were recruiting patients into Mayhill,' Franco said.

Mayhill is a behavioral hospital in Denton, but Franco didn't know that.She was told Mayhill had the capability to treat Crohn's, a digestive disorder. So she signed papers to be admitted there.



'She wasn't getting her [Crohn's] medication, you know,' said Phoebe's mother, June Franco. 'She could have died. It's not a disease you fool around with.'


The next morning, she said a woman came into her room and told Laura she would be 'assessing' her.

'The whole time, I thought she worked for the hospital, and she works for UBH,' Hilton said.

The assessor told her she was being transferred to UBH.

'I didn't have an option,' Hilton said.




Mayhill was granted 'Top Performers' status by the Joint Commission, which certifies hospitals.


In a statement, the company said: 'University Behavioral Health of Denton and Mayhill Hospital are unable to provide specific comment on these matters, as they potentially relate to pending litigation. [...] UBH Denton and Mayhill's priority is providing quality health care to our patients and we remain focused on that goal.'

'I had to fight tooth and nail to get out of there,' Tenaya Farber said.


'And when the 72 hours were up, I had specifically asked I want to leave,' Farber said. 'I know my rights, and I was told by the nursing staff that I would not be, and that if I tried to ask to leave, it was going on my record.'



Phoebe Franco said she filed the forms twice. Nothing happened.









That's money none of them has.

'You have an absolute right to your medical record,' Wanda Mohr said. 'That says that somebody's trying to cover something up -- or they're just plain foot-dragging or hoping these folks would go away.'




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