Heat refuels calls to close state hospital
Rooms at Westborough State Hospital have topped 100 degrees during the height of the summer's heat waves, leaving staff scrambling to cool off patients with Popsicles, showers, and activities in the few air-conditioned rooms.
Even before the heat peaked last week, one patient was sent to a Worcester emergency room with dehydration. A potential patient has since been denied a room because doctors fear the same fate.
``It was 107 degrees in some parts of the hospital," Dr. Bruce Meltzer , medical director of the facility's adolescent continuing-care unit, said of last week's heat wave.
``It's a major health concern."
Meltzer said on the hottest nights, the 30 patients in his program had to drag their mattresses into the air-conditioned dining and recreations rooms. The unit's patients, who are 13 to 19 years old, have been diagnosed with severe mental illnesses that range from mood to eating disorders, he said.
The state Department of Mental Health oversees the care of 198 adults and 30 adolescents in several buildings on the century-old campus off Lyman Street. Only patients whose medical conditions make them particular vulnerable to heat have air conditioning in their rooms.
Mental health advocates say they've been lobbying the state for a decade to air condition all the patients' rooms.
``We've raised this concern for some time. As bad as heat is for everyone, it's much worse if you're on antipsychotic medication," said Stan Eichner , executive director of the Disability Law Center in Boston, which advocates for the adults at the state hospital.
``It's shamefully inadequate, but it's hard to force them to upgrade an old facility."
The money simply isn't available, said Kevin Flanigan , a deputy director at the state Division of Capital Asset Management, or DCAM.
``The funding for these types of projects is pretty much gone," said Flanigan, who added that it's been at least five years since his agency received money from the Legislature to improve the state hospitals.
``Our ability to make upgrades to that hospital is severely limited."
In addition to buying air conditioners, the state would have to upgrade the electrical system, Flanigan said.
``The issue is going in and replacing all the wiring so you can put in window units. It's costly. It's not something DCAM is working on," Flanigan said. ``If that facility was going to be occupied for decades to come, we might take another approach."
Department of Mental Health officials have asked the Legislature to fund a $200 million campus in Worcester with 320 beds to house adult and adolescent patients now at the Westborough and Worcester state hospitals. They said the proposed facility would take five years to build.
The new facility ``would solve all our problems," said the department's chief of staff, Patricia Mackin , who described Westborough State Hospital as the most inadequate in the state. ``I think everybody recognizes the need."
The proposal failed to clear the Legislature last month and probably won't come up again until January, Mackin said.
In a March 2004 report, the Department of Mental Health cited inadequate air conditioning as one of the reasons Westborough State Hospital should be replaced.
It noted that clients taking psychotropic medications can have problems regulating their body temperature, putting them at risk during heat spells.
For now, Mackin said, staffing has been beefed up, and patient checks are being made every 15 minutes. ``It's certainly not ideal, but we're trying," Mackin said.
The adolescent care program, which is operated by the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, is the only one of its kind in the state. Patients stay an average of 10 months.
Meltzer, the director, said his staff is studying the effects of the heat on aggression and may have preliminary findings by next month.
The Center for Public Representation in Boston, a nonprofit legal organization that advocates for adolescents at the hospital, wants the state to find temporary housing for its patients in the summer.
``It's untenable for most people in a psychiatric hospital to be in units that are very, very hot," said a lawyer with the group, Robert Fleischner. ``That's not a good situation in an environment that's supposed to be therapeutic."
