April 23, 2012 | 11:51 AM |

Globe Calls For Analysis Of Taunton State Hospital Closing

FILED UNDER: Medicine/Science, Money, mental illness, psychiatry

The future "village green" at the new Massachusetts state psychiatric hospital. (Carey Goldberg/WBUR)

The future "village green" at the new Massachusetts state psychiatric hospital. (Carey Goldberg/WBUR)


The Patrick administration announced three months ago that it would be closing Taunton State Hospital, moving most of its beds to the new state psychiatric hospital in Worcester.

Having toured the near-complete Worcester hospital, I can’t help but think that it will be a dramatic improvement for the mentally ill patients lucky enough to end up there, but the Taunton closing has brought protests on several fronts, including concerns that patients will be farther from their home communities.

The issue looks likely to re-ignite in the coming days in the state legislature, and the Boston Globe writes today that the state should not shutter Taunton without an independent analysis:

Such a study shouldn’t consume much time, but should answer lingering questions. Will the loss of the hospital leave a gap in mental health services from Brockton to Cape Cod, as critics contend? Or is it a meaningless geographic distinction in a statewide system, as the administration responds?

Does the closure represent a net loss of beds for people with acute mental illness? Not with a new state hospital coming on line in Worcester, say mental health officials. But critics contend that the total of 626 state beds remaining after Taunton closes is significantly lower than what the mental health department stated as its actual need as recently as 2004.

The outlook, according to the Globe:

Amendments aimed at saving the hospital are likely to crop up in this week’s debate on the House budget. And there may be even less appetite in the Senate for shuttering the facility. That may be unfortunate: If an independent analyst finds that patients can be treated as well or better in other hospitals, the state should move quickly to close Taunton. The Legislature should compel such a study and support its recommendations.

Readers? Yes? No?

  • Jillhmr

    An emphatic NO to the closure of Taunton!  The “other hospitals” referenced in the Globe story are acute care settings –  do not provide, can not provide intermediate or longer term care. If a cursory assessment doesn’t  indicate risk (suicidality/homicidality) a patient may be discharged in few hours. A week is a long inpatient stay by today’s standards. Whoever is doing this analysis should talk to those of us who have been in the community trenches with the mentally ill – case managers, residential staff, shelter workers and  psych emergency services. De-institutionalization comes at a huge cost.

  • A Peer

    I agree completely with the previous comment – the new facility is simply “the new Worcester State Hospital”, and should not be seen as “better care” just because it is pretty. It may actually represent some steps backwards – each of the single rooms has a lock – on the outside of the door. 

    The new WSH is neither any kind of answer to a system that is near to its breaking points – in both its inpatient capacity and providing adequate levels and quality of community-based services.As a person in recovery who volunteered for a intermediate-length stay to prevent suicide, I can say that while traumatizing and often difficult, longer stays in hospitals are sometimes necessary and life saving for the person in the hospital. With only 600+ beds, it may be harder to get into a state hospital in Massachusetts than be admitted to Harvard.  I think the wisest move would be to stop the fiscal bloodletting from our Commonwealth’s mental health system. Level funding for 9 years filled by sharp cuts over the last 3 years have left everyone traumatized, including and especially DMH staff members and DMH vendors’ staff members working in the system.I do not support closing Taunton – it has been a model facility, it plays a key role in its community, and none of the funds from running it, as far as I know, will be put into the care of the people who have been discharged, quite appropriately, into the community over the past 3 years, without any additional funding to support their recoveries. The new WSH ought not be seen with the goal of it becoming “the only state hospital” – people ought to be served in their communities, and in places where they can return to their communities. Ideally, Rep. Balser’s budget amendments will pass, so that the people who need help will be moved off the DMH wait list and served, preferably in their own apartments and homes. But those who need move “intensive and intrusive” care ought not languish in acute care facilities waiting for a bed, and that bed should not be one likely very far away from home. 

  • Guest

    The author of this article thinks patients would be lucky to end up at the newly build facility in Worcester.  Looks can be deceiving.   For example, a new nursing home opened near me several years ago.  The lobby looked more like a hotel lobby than a nursing home.  People thought it was wonderful. Few people knew that it, like all nursing homes, was understaffed.  There was a small fire in the basement that threatened patients.  Doctors there meddled with patient’s medication, causing at least one great harm.  Don’t judge patient care by the newness of the facility.  Most of the buildings at Taunton State are old, but it’s the people who care for the patients who matter.  Why not focus on the care, not the facilities?

  • Croesorcorgi

    People should not be dazzled or distracted by the new facility in Worcester; or confuse a new building with better care. The truth is that the Administration’s push to close Taunton is based on poor fiscal planning– Taunton is being closed in order to open a new hospital that was only ever meant to serve folks in Central and Western Mass. Taunton should remain open in order to provide inpatient psychiatric continuing care and forensic care services to Massachusetts residents in the Southeast and parts of metro-Boston.