(Host) Governor Peter Shumlin says he wants to permanently shut down the State Hospital in Waterbury.
The facility was heavily damaged by Tropical Storm Irene and the 50 or so patients at the Hospital have been housed in several different locations around the state.
VPR’s Bob Kinzel has more.
(Kinzel) The question facing the Shumlin Administration is whether it makes sense to try to repair the State Hospital building. The answer, Shumlin says, is no.
Some of the patients are now housed at the Brattleboro Retreat, some are at a separate wing at the Springfield prison and others are in hospitals in Rutland and Burlington.
The Governor says the old State Hospital building was a terrible setting for mental health services before Irene and he says he never wants to use it again.
(Shumlin) "The facility does not dignify the quality of care that we should be giving to those who are suffering from mental illness. So it is my intention never to go back to Waterbury for the state hospital."
(Kinzel) Shumlin’s four point plan calls for locating 14 patients permanently at the Brattleboro Retreat, finding a secure facility for another 15 patients in the northern part of Vermont, creating two transitional facilities, and expanding in home services.
The State Hospital lost its federal certification and federal funding a number of years ago. Shumlin says his plan will bring these federal dollars back to the state.
(Shumlin) "What that means is that not only do we think this will be a better delivery system than what we had but we also believe that it will cost Vermont taxpayers less money because we will go back to qualifying for the 60 percent federal match 40 percent state dollars for almost all of the proposals that have just been outlined."
(Kinzel) Deputy Human Services Secretary Patrick Flood says the goal is to put each patient in the most appropriate setting.
(Flood) "There are some people, frankly, who are worse off in a hospital setting because they’re around so many other people and it’s distracting and unnerving. You have somebody like that in a one-on-one setting or two-on-one setting – they do better. Other people need to be more in a hospital setting where they’re getting various group activities and stuff, so we’re going to try to individualize all those as much as possible."
(Kinzel) Northfield Rep. Anne Donahue has been involved in mental health issues for many years. She doesn’t like the plan because it abandons the concept of having a new centralized state hospital.
(Donahue) "These decisions are being made outside of that context, without any regard to the impact on long term context and they vary greatly from our long term values and assumptions about best evidence based best care for people with acute mental illness."
(Kinzel) The Governor says the expansion of community mental health programs could be in place in a matter of weeks. Other changes could take several months or years.
For VPR News, I’m Bob Kinzel in Montpelier.