What happened to you at Heartland was not okay, and it was never yours to carry.

Heartland Behavioral Health Services sits on fifty acres at the west edge of Nevada, Missouri, and it is where children from western Missouri and over the Kansas line are sent when they are in crisis. It takes kids as young as four and no one older than seventeen. In June 2026 three of those former patients, who were 10, 12 and 13 when they first walked in, sued the hospital and the company that owns it, Universal Health Services, in Vernon County Circuit Court. Two of them say staff did it. The third says it happened on an outing that staff arranged and staff were watching. If you were a patient there, or your child was, this is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were sedated, or medicated, and the memory has holes in it. One of the three plaintiffs says a staff member gave him a shot first. He was ten. Gaps in the memory are the case, not a problem with it.
It wasn't a staff member. The third plaintiff says a nursing-home resident assaulted her on a trip Heartland organized, with a Heartland employee standing right there. The complaint is against the hospital for that, not the resident. Pick "I would rather talk about this privately" on the role screen and tell us on the call.
It was another patient. A locked children's unit exists so the kids on it are safe from each other. When that fails, the question is who was watching.
You told someone and nothing happened. The petition says, in so many words, that Heartland failed at investigating sexual abuse complaints. Yours would be one more.
Your year is probably in there already. Whether it was 2014, or 2017, or last year, the case on file covers 2014 through 2025, and Missouri's clock for a child does not even start until you are 21.
You're a parent, and your kid came home from Nevada different and never said why. Use the "asking for my child" button. The questions rewrite themselves for you, and the call is the same call.

The Heartland lawsuit and the public record: what is on file, and when

None of what follows is ours. A state memo, a Senate committee report, a court petition and the reporters who read it wrote it, and every line below links to where it came from. Where it says "alleges," that is the word: Heartland and Universal Health Services have admitted nothing in court, and no judge or jury has decided anything yet.

April 30, 2021

Heartland West, the company's off-campus residential site at 15642 S. 1400 Road in Nevada, closed for residential treatment services. The Missouri Children's Division told its staff the day before, in memo CD21-17, and said the main campus would stay open. The memo gives no reason. Missouri DSS Children's Division memo CD21-17.

June 12, 2024

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee published "Warehouses of Neglect," its two-year investigation of youth residential treatment companies including UHS. It names Heartland twice. An unannounced Joint Commission survey of Great Plains Hospital, Heartland's legal name, on February 22–25, 2021, found the hospital misusing its suicide-risk tool: a child who had attempted suicide the week before admission was scored a "lower" risk (page 96). A Joint Commission compliance document dated May 13, 2021 found Heartland did not provide a "clean and comfortable environment" (page 81). UHS told committee staff the suicide-screening findings likely reflected paperwork, not care. Senate Finance Committee report (PDF), pp. 81, 96.

June 11, 2026

KOAM in Joplin reported a petition filed in Vernon County by three former patients. John Doe #1 was an inpatient July 24–31, 2017, at twelve, and again February 27 to March 5, 2021, at sixteen; he alleges a male and a female staff member sexually abused him. John Doe #2 was an inpatient in 2025 at ten; he alleges a staff member lured him to a secluded area, injected a sedative "without warning or medical direction," and sexually assaulted him while he was unconscious. Jane Doe #1 was an inpatient at various times from 2014 to 2018, between thirteen and seventeen; she alleges that on a mandatory off-site "volunteer" trip to a nursing home, a resident with "a known history of inappropriate behavior" assaulted her in view of a Heartland staff member. KOAM News Now.

June 25, 2026

Plaintiffs' counsel announced the case: John Doe #1, Jane Doe #1 and John Doe #2 v. Great Plains Hospital, Inc. d/b/a Heartland Behavioral Health Services, Universal Health Services, Inc., and UHS of Delaware, Inc., Vernon County Circuit Court No. 26VE-CV00452. The petition alleges the defendants "failed to provide a safe environment for children receiving mental health treatment and failed to adequately supervise staff and patients," with failures in "employee screening, hiring, training, staffing, monitoring, and the investigation of sexual abuse complaints," and that UHS "exercised substantial control over facility operations, staffing, training, risk management, and patient safety practices." Counsel's release, National Law Review.

July 21, 2026

KCUR and St. Louis Public Radio reported the suit statewide. Attorney Kayla Onder of St. Louis: "It seems as though there was very little to no true oversight." She said she represents several other former patients who have come forward since. Universal Health Services declined to discuss the litigation and said Heartland "remains committed to providing high-quality care to patients with special, and often complex, mental health needs." The reporting noted UHS has faced litigation over similar allegations at its Illinois facilities. KCUR / Midwest Newsroom.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from July 21, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Heartland Behavioral Health lawsuit

The hospital, and the company behind it. Heartland is a psychiatric hospital for children, acute beds and a residential program on one campus, and by its own account it has been in Nevada for more than a hundred years. Its legal name is Great Plains Hospital, Inc. Its owner is Universal Health Services, one of the four youth residential-treatment companies the Senate Finance Committee spent two years investigating, and the petition names UHS Inc. and UHS of Delaware alongside the hospital. Its theory is plain: a company that controls the staffing, the training and the risk management of a children's hospital answers for what that hospital let happen. That is an allegation. UHS says nothing about the case and says Heartland is committed to high-quality care.

The theory is negligence, in ordinary words. Not malpractice, not a bad diagnosis. A child on a locked unit cannot leave, cannot pick her own caregivers and cannot call home when she wants to. Whoever runs that unit took on the job of watching. Read the petition and the list is long. Heartland, it says, didn't screen the people it hired. Didn't train them, didn't staff the units, didn't monitor them, and didn't look into it when a child said something. Each of those is something the plaintiffs still have to prove. And notice what none of them is about: a diagnosis. They are about the institution.

The person who did it is a defendant too, if you know who it was, and if there is anyone to answer. Nobody is named in the petition, and we have found no criminal charge against any Heartland employee tied to these three accounts. We will say so plainly, because a page like this should never make a case sound bigger than it is. What is on file is a civil complaint. What it describes is enough.

Your deadline: the Missouri statute of limitations for sexual abuse at a children's psychiatric hospital

If you were under 18 at Heartland, and nearly everyone was, Missouri's childhood sexual abuse statute, RSMo 537.046, runs to ten years after your 21st birthday, so age 31, or three years from the day you connected the injury to what happened, whichever comes later. That is why the quiz asks about your birth year. Born in 2000 or later and you are inside on every clock this year; born between 1995 and 1999 and the answer turns on which claim and which clock, so that is the one to ask about first. Born earlier and it turns on discovery, which is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date on a calendar.

One honest wrinkle, and we would rather you hear it from us. In 2016 the Missouri Supreme Court read 537.046 to reach the person who did the abusing, not the institution that let it happen. The claim against the hospital and against UHS runs instead on Missouri's general five-year rule, RSMo 516.120, and that clock does not start until you turn 21 (RSMo 516.170), and not until the harm is, in the statute's words, "capable of ascertainment" (RSMo 516.100). So a lawyer looks at two dates for you: your 21st birthday and the day the damage became clear. The three plaintiffs, who were 10 to 17 between 2014 and 2025, are inside on every count. Don't try to do this math alone. Answer the questions and let someone who does it every day read your dates.

Since August 28, 2025, Missouri also says a nondisclosure agreement in a childhood sexual abuse case is void and cannot be enforced. If someone had you, or your parents, sign something on the way out the door, it does not close this one.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told anyone, or you told a nurse and it went in a chart and nowhere else.
You were sedated, or on so many medications you were not sure what was real. The ten-year-old in the petition says he was too.
You were there because of something you did, or because a court or the Children's Division sent you, and you figure that counts against you. It doesn't.
It was another kid, or someone on an outing who didn't even work there. You are not blaming them. You are asking who was supposed to be watching.
Your parents signed the paperwork and you never saw it. Missouri voids the nondisclosure kind now anyway.
You live in Kansas or Iowa or Arkansas or Oklahoma now. Nevada sits a few miles from the Kansas line, and the case is in Missouri wherever you sleep tonight.

Locations covered

Heartland Behavioral Health Services, 1500 West Ashland Street, Nevada, Missouri 64772 · the acute inpatient units, the residential program on the main campus, and any off-site trip staff took you on. Heartland West, the residential site at 15642 S. 1400 Road that closed in April 2021, is covered too. A different children's psychiatric or residential facility in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas or Oklahoma? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Heartland Behavioral Health?

Three former patients already have, in Vernon County Circuit Court, case 26VE-CV00452, and their lawyer says more have come forward. Whether you can turns mostly on your age at the time, when you were there and when you were born, which is what the questions above sort out. A lawyer gives you the real answer, for free.

How long do I have? The Missouri statute of limitations for child sexual abuse

Short version. Against the person who did it, RSMo 537.046 gives you until ten years past your 21st birthday, or three years from the day you connected the harm to it, whichever comes later. Against the hospital, Missouri's Supreme Court has said the general five-year rule applies, but that clock does not start until you turn 21 and the harm is clear. Two clocks, so a lawyer reads your dates. Don't decide alone.

Is Heartland Behavioral Health being investigated?

What is public is a civil lawsuit, filed in June 2026, plus a 2024 Senate Finance Committee report that names Heartland for a 2021 inspection finding. We have not found a criminal charge against any Heartland employee connected to the three accounts in the petition, and we won't pretend otherwise. If a prosecutor files one, this page will say so.

Who owns Heartland Behavioral Health in Nevada, Missouri?

Universal Health Services does. It's one of the four companies the Senate Finance Committee spent two years on for that 2024 report, the big youth residential-treatment chains. The hospital's paperwork name is Great Plains Hospital, Inc. That's why the case caption reads the way it does. UHS Inc. and UHS of Delaware are in the caption too, as defendants.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency, so the lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing, not for the call and not for the review.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Missouri attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.