Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital opens
Almost three years after Vermont’s antiquated psychiatric hospital in Waterbury was forced to close because of flooding from Hurricane Irene, the state held a ribbon cutting for its new $28 million, almost 47,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art psychiatric facility in Berlin.
The Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital opened July 1 and is expected to be at capacity at the end of August. “I think that just walking into the building…it gives so much a sense of comfort and being welcoming than the old hospital did,” says Frank Reed, Vermont’s deputy commissioner for mental health. “You can immediately see into the courtyard areas. You can see a water feature that’s running, you can see the labyrinth on the ground and just the general brightness in the hospital and all of that continues in the facility.”
A concrete labyrinth pattern on the ground outside the hospital allows patients to walk through or walk across it.
Reed and Hospital CEO Jeff Rothenberg describe the facility as having an open concept design. Each patient stays in an individual room with its own bathroom. There is also a kitchenette and laundry area on each of the inpatient units. “There was an emphasis on natural light in the building and there was an emphasis on having a lot of space in the building for patients beyond the unit,” Rothenberg says.
The hospital has a recovery and learning center, which has an exercise room with state-of-the-art exercise equipment, says Rothenberg. Along with a greenhouse, the hospital also features an activity room, and a library, both of which have 14-foot ceilings and several windows.
There are also features within the unit that allow patients to be autonomous and still be safe, says Reed. Fixtures and handles in patient rooms come without ligature points. Doors are alarmed at the top so if anything is placed there by a patient, staff will be notified, he says. There are also comfort rooms and quiet spaces for patients and meeting space so that family members and significant others can some in and meet with them, he says.
The one-story facility has four units – two with eight beds each, one with five beds and one with four beds. One of the eight-bed units opened July 2 taking patients who had been staying at Copley Hospital in Morrisville, which served as a temporary psychiatric hospital while the new facility was under construction. The second eight-bed opened in late July.
The 25 beds at the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital, along with those created at Brattleboro Retreat and Rutland Regional Medical Center, should alleviate the long wait times in emergency rooms, which had led to some violent incidents against hospital staff by patients dealing with mental illness waiting for treatment.
“That complement of 45 inpatient beds should address the bleakness that we’ve been experiencing in the emergency department by not having beds available,” says Reed. “We’ve also got a big continuum of care that was created with intensive residential recovery programs, crisis bed programs, and a seven-bed secure residential program, many of which didn’t exist prior to the closure, so there is much more of an opportunity to move through the system than they had before.”
Patients treated at the new hospital will be the most acute individuals who need psychiatric hospitalization, Reed says. Most patients treated there will be under involuntary care, he says.
The $28 million project (which includes the land acquisition) was completed on time and on budget, Rothenberg says. Federal Emergency Management Agency and an insurance reimbursement provided the majority of the project funding in light of the storm, leaving Vermont with a little more than a $12 million price tag for the hospital.
About 181 state employees work at the new hospital along with 10 building and general services staff. Two full-time psychologists, two full-time and three less than full time contracted psychiatrists were brought on to provide services at the hospital, he says.