GUEST OPINION: State should seek a fair compromise on Taunton State Hospital
On Feb. 22, there was a 22-minute radio talk show on WGBH hosted by Callie Crossley. Guests included Laurie Martinelli, executive director of the Massachusetts branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and Marcia Fowler, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. The topic discussed was the closing of Taunton State Hospital. This format is a great way for the public to learn about current issues and hear opposing views. This show, unfortunately, was not fact filled and some statements made were, in my opinion, misleading to the general public.
It was stated that the closure of TSH is a social justice issue and a human rights issue – that the mental health patients deserve a state-of-the-art facility. “The department believes that people with mental illness deserve to be in facilities that have adequate structure, heating, air conditioning, and where people have private rooms.” The facts that pertain to TSH were not mentioned. This hospital had a total renovation of one of the buildings that holds seven of its 10 units back in the early 1990s. This same building has heat, central air conditioning, and private rooms. These units also have dorm rooms that allow four patients to room together.
This allows patients to prepare to return to the community as a part of the Community First program where many will go to halfway and quarter-way houses to share bedrooms with other patients. Private rooms are glorious, but not always based in the reality that these patients will often time live in for the rest of their lives. TSH units have relaxation rooms specifically designed with a therapeutic atmosphere to assist the patients in utilizing the coping skills they learn in the groups they attend as well as during the therapeutic sessions they may have. The patients also have a state of the art gymnasium that was built in the 1990s. This building is also available to the general public for various activities, including Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. The hospital also has a new power plant that has resulted in the hospital being extremely cost effective to heat.
It was stated that the average length of stay is less than 180 days. While this is the current goal of the department, there are many patients that, for various reasons, have been unable to attain that goal. Many have been at the hospital for many more than 180 days, some even for years. Placement into the community has been a reason for delaying the patient’s discharge due to lack of appropriate placement, but this is by no means the only reason that a patient has a stay over 180 days. I can’t help but wonder if the average is determined by including crisis beds and court evaluation patients in which the court predetermines the number of days a patient will stay on the forensic unit. Remember, you can make the figures look any way you’d like.
The commissioner also stated that “it is incumbent upon the department to assist families in any way possible, to visit family members in our facilities, and the department would be willing to engage with the mother that called in to the show in that effort.” I have to ask, do all those words say anything to a mother who will not be able to see her son as often as she wants while he is in the hospital? What about the families of those patients that are in the new Worcester hospital long after the dust settles and the commissioner is no longer so active in the issues of families? Has there been any mention of long-term, permanent transportation solutions for families and patients? What about the peer supports that the patients receive from the visits of former patients that they have established bonds with? These former patients are on very fixed incomes, and will not be able to afford the taxi fare to go to the new Worcester Hospital.
The plan of 2004 was to consolidate the Tewksbury State Hospital and the present Worcester State Hospital to form the new state of the art Worcester Hospital and Recovery Center. However, now in 2012 the plan has changed to consolidate Taunton State Hospital and Worcester, leaving the southeast area without any long term beds, and in the process closing a facility that has many assets besides simply its location. Tell me, in all of the discussions, has anyone explained why the old buildings that need much work and repair, the hospital that is truly antiquated – Tewksbury State Hospital – will stay open, and the millions of taxpayer dollars that have been spent on Taunton will be shut down to become a story of money poorly spent?
As a registered nurse for the Department of Mental Health for 30 years, I know the above to be accurate information. I speak to this subject both as a nurse for the mentally ill but also as a taxpayer of the commonwealth. A fair compromise would be to keep TSH open on a smaller scale to allow the patients to stay in the southeast area where there is family,friends and support so vital to their rehabilitation.
TSH could easily occupy the Cain building which was the renovated building, which would allow the Department of Youth Services to rent/occupy the units TSH would vacate for the patients that could move to Worcester. The sad reality is that not all patients have ties to an area and can be moved without emotional distress. Those are the patients the could be moved to the new hospital and be served very well. Others do have emotional ties and a new facility is not what is their No. 1 need.
Mary Ellen Frias, R.N., is a Fall River resident and a registered nurse for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health.
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