Mental health officials agree to keep AMHI ward ready
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.
AUGUSTA — Mental health officials agreed Wednesday to keep a ward ready at Augusta Mental Health Institute after a new psychiatric hospital opens.
As part of the legislative deal, they also want to monitor the number of patients turned away from the new hospital.
Senate President Beverly C. Daggett, D-Augusta, sponsored a bill that would have required the Maine Department of Behavioral and Developmental Services to keep a wing at AMHI ready to reopen if more than 30 percent of qualified patients are turned away from the new state Riverview Psychiatric Center.
"The idea was to keep capacity for an emergency if the new hospital was not sufficient," Daggett said.
The agreement, signed minutes before Wednesday's public hearing on Daggett's bill, allows this happen and has some triggers to try to address that.
If it becomes necessary, the agreement also calls for the department to set aside $30,000 from its capital budget for preliminary design of a third wing to the 92-bed hospital now under construction.
A provision of Daggett's legislation was included in the agreement reached Wednesday. If more than 30 percent of patients referred to the state hospital are turned away, the department has to submit a plan to the Legislature to care for those patients.
Led by the Augusta-based Citizens Advisory Group, a mental health advocacy group, leaders of the state's major medical associations joined advocates for the mentally ill, and the Maine chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill joined to urge Daggett to submit the legislation.
Rev. David Glusker, a founder of the Citizens Advisory Group and a longtime advocate for a larger state psychiatric hospital, said he remains convinced numbers will show the need for additional hospital beds and the agreement will require department officials to take action to provide additional capacity.
"I'm hoping everything has been taken care of, but I'm fearful it hasn't been and this agreement provides a safety net," Glusker said.
Acting state mental health commissioner Sabra Burdick said the state's crisis response programs and other community mental health treatment programs have helped ease the demand for hospital beds. A new cooperative agreement between the state and community hospitals also should help, she said.
Burdick said she expects the statistics gathered under the agreement to show that additional beds at the new state psychiatric hospital will not be necessary.
The state is developing so-called 23-hour beds that can provide some emergency psychiatric patients with short-term stabilization and medication to head off hospitalizations.
"I believe that the kind of work we're doing with all the community hospitals and the crisis system is going to minimize or reduce hospital admissions," Burdick said.
Even with the AMHI wing in reserve, the acting commissioner said, in the unlikely event that more beds are needed she hopes a new Riverview wing would be the answer.
"What this says is the trigger would kick off the design process for the new hospital (addition) which, if you need a hospital is the way to do it," Burdick said.
"You don't want to open an old hospital which is old and out of date." Patient services have also been spared the most severe state budget cuts, Burdick said. "I don't think it's going to devastate that community system. I think we're going to be able keep it in place."