State Hospital Patients May Move To Williston

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(Host) Mental health advocates are urging the Shumlin Administration not to reopen the antiquated state hospital in Waterbury.

Meanwhile, officials say they’re making progress on finding space for some of the patients. They hope some can be moved to a residential facility in Williston.

VPR’s John Dillon has this update:

(Dillon) The state hospital has been closed since floodwaters unleashed by Tropical Storm swept through Waterbury.

As the waters rose, hospital staff moved quickly to transfer 51 patients to the Brattleboro Retreat, Fletcher Allen Health care in Burlington, and other facilities around the state.

Now advocates want the Shumlin Administration to seize the opportunity created by the storm to permanently close the Waterbury hospital.

(Paquin) "It’s not a modern facility. It’s more like a prison than a hospital I think most people would agree.’

(Dillon) Ed Paquin is executive director of Disability Rights Vermont.

(Paquin) "We like many directions that the administration is looking at right now. But one specific that we all agreed about was that wouldn’t it be travesty to be putting very needy Vermont citizens back into an environment where we wouldn’t even open offices for state employees?"

(Dillon) The state has looked at a number of options for both the short and long term. Christine Oliver is the commissioner of mental health. She says officials hope some patients can be transferred to the old Pine Ridge School in Williston. The private school – which is now closed – has dormitories which could be retrofitted for patient care.

(Oliver) "Of all the options we have looked at, and there have been many, this remains the most viable right now."

(Dillon) Oliver says the state is negotiating with the bank that owns the school. She says that, if the state is successful, the Williston school could help alleviate the strain now being experienced by the health care system as providers scrambled to absorb the state hospital population.

(Oliver) "To get a 20 to 30 bed capacity would really take some pressure off the system that exists right now."

(Dillon) One option no one likes is returning patients to Waterbury.

But Governor Shumlin says he cannot promise that the site will never be reopened to treat patients on a temporary basis.

(Shumlin) "I can’t commit to anything, because we’re in a crisis, a management crisis. All I can tell you that philosophically I’ve been very clear – it’s a disservice to our most vulnerable Vermonters to house them in the Waterbury complex. The complex is not worthy of the dignity by which we should be treating them."

(Dillon) The federal government has twice refused to certify the antiquated hospital. That means Vermont cannot get federal health care money for patient who are treated there.

For VPR News, I’m John Dillon in Montpelier.

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