State Hospital Flooding Poses Challenge

(HOST) Community hospitals around the state continue to grapple with the challenges posed by flooding at the State Hospital.  VPR's Jane Lindholm has more.

(Lindholm) Dr. Robert Pierattini, head of psychiatry at Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, was driving to work the Monday after Tropical Storm Irene when he got a call from the medical director at the Vermont State Hospital.

(Dr. Pierattini) "He said, VHS was flooded and we have to evacuate the patients."

(Lindholm) Just hours later, seven psychiatry teams were welcoming seven patients from the state hospital to Fletcher Allen. That process repeated itself at facilities around the state, as all 51 state hospital patients were relocated. 

Many of those patients have since been discharged, but the lack of the state hospital continues to affect Fletcher Allen.

(Dr. Pierattini) "The state hospital was a safety valve. So that if we had a particular patient mix that was really disruptive or potentially dangerous, we would negotiate to transfer people.  We don't have that now. We have frail, elderly, vulnerable people mixed on a unit with large scary men who frighten them."

(Lindholm) The result has been a much higher incidence of violence and aggression. Dr. Pierattini says that in a normal year there are between zero and three patient assaults on staff.  Since August 29, there have been ten to fifteen.

(Dr. Pierattini) "The challenge 24 hours a day of making sure everyone is safe is just extremely stressful.  And it never ends."

(Lindholm) Patrick Flood is deputy secretary of the Agency of Human Services.  He says his agency understands the urgency of this situation and is working hard, in the short term, to get patients out of in-patient psychiatry units at the general hospitals and into 24-hour community care.  

(Flood) "Hopefully we will start to see within days, rather than weeks, those options coming into place so that people could be in other settings rather than just the general hospitals."

(Lindholm) Patients currently being housed and treated at the Springfield prison are of the highest priority. 

Flood says a long term solution is at least a year away. 

(Flood) "Even if we found a facility that could be used for a care facility, there's all kinds of issues with permitting or zoning or some kind of renovations and it can take months.

(Lindholm) So in the meantime, state officials are still investigating other buildings, including the former Pine Ridge School in Williston, that could be set up within three or four months to help alleviate the pressure on the general hospitals that are currently treating these patients.

For Dr. Pierattini at Fletcher Allen, a concrete plan would come as welcome relief to his staff.

(Dr. Pierattini) "The number one thing I hear is, ‘I hope there's a solution coming soon.  We're okay day-by-day, we're okay right now.  But we really need for this to be resolved so that we're closer to our normal functioning.'"

For VPR news, I'm Jane Lindholm.