Thursday, 4:30 PM
Psych hospitals to stop admitting new patients
By Carey Goldberg, GLOBE STAFF
State psychiatric hospitals will stop admitting new patients on Wednesday, and 170 Department of Mental Health staff positions will be eliminated in response to Governor Mitt Romney’s emergency budget cuts announced earlier this month, according to private hospital groups briefed by state officials.
In addition to the freeze on hospital admissions, the cuts would do away with 37 percent of the staffers who provide care to hundreds of emotionally disturbed children and teens in their communities; cut dozens of inpatient jobs for nurses, aides and psychiatrists; and reduce funding for medical school research, according to an overview circulated by the Massachusetts Hospital Association.
The mental health agency began sending out notifications on Friday that its hospitals, which have about 850 adult inpatient beds, would stop accepting psychiatric patients who would normally have transferred to them for longer-term care. It aims to re-open admissions when the patient population has dwindled enough to be cared for by a smaller staff.
"This is just a horrible Thanksgiving for people in the state who have mental illness," said Toby Fisher, executive director of the Massachusetts branch of the National Association on Mental Illness. "This will block up the entire mental health system."
Romney’s spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, defended the cuts, and said the agency should be able to absorb its cut without reducing services. "We think any good manager should be able to absorb a 1.1 percent cut through payroll and administration," he said, and budget experts will work with the department "to put forward a more realistic plan."
Stephen Smith of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Carey Goldberg can be reached at goldberg@globe.com.
