Baystate Health plans to shut down mental health units in three of its community hospitals in favor of opening a single facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
CommonWealth magazine took a closer look at the why and how of this — along with the reaction from patients, counselors and nurses.
Reporter Linda Enerson said the plan to close those mental health units has raised some concerns.
Linda Enerson, CommonWealth magazine: The three that are closing are Baystate Noble in Westfield, Baystate Wing in Palmer and Baystate Franklin in Greenfield. Those are just the mental health units in the community hospitals.
Carrie Healy, NEPR: Baystate's facility in Holyoke will actually be a private facility, majority owned by another private company. Why would the region's hospital team up to provide service in that way?
It is an unusual partnership that we haven't really seen that much of around here. Although the same company is opening in the exact same — apparently — kind of a majority partnership with UMass Health, the umbrella group, sort of like Baystate Health in the Worcester region.
They're also opening another facility in Worcester.
Baystate is a nonprofit, and this facility will be a private company. So it's a partnership, but it's funny — it doesn't really fit. It's a nonprofit partnering with a for-profit company.
What are the priorities of a for-profit company when it comes to mental health care?
There's a lot of, I would say, debate and tension around that. The folks that are opposing this move see a couple of real things that could be, potentially, really detrimental to the health care of these people with mental illness.
One is that they won't get care in their local community, and that's that's really hard for them. It's not an easy thing for them to go outside of their community because of transportation, and because leaving that support network is really hard. They're fragile in some ways.
The other thing that I think people who are opposing this move are saying: is a private company going to really put the emphasis on treating the folks that have no insurance, or have public insurance? Or will they move toward favoring people in their admissions policies that have insurance, so that they get good reimbursement rates? Like: how would you turn a profit, if it's a for-profit company, when you've got these low reimbursement rates?
So that's what these folks are advocating for — that this is just not going to be something that's going to serve the needs of the most fragile of these patients.
.@CommonWealthMag examines Baystate's plan to close #mentalhealth beds in 3 Western MA communities.
— MNA (@MassNurses) June 11, 2019
The proposed closures -- like many hospital industry closures MNA is fighting via pending legislation -- concerns nurses, advocates and patients.https://t.co/7Ddh0vyUBh #mapoli
In the course of your reporting, what did Baystate say about the reasons for the consolidation of the services?
They're not really saying a whole lot about why they're doing things, but their statements are that this isn't ...a "consolidation." They call it an "expansion." They don't like the word "consolidation."
They're putting the emphasis on what they're opening, and that this is going to be expanded beds, which the mental health system, in my reporting, seems to be really stressed in Massachusetts. And there are people who either are folks who don't have insurance, or people who are sort of these — what they call "hard to place" patients. There are people who are disruptive, they're children, or people with medical needs — and they're waiting in the emergency rooms for days, sometimes weeks, until they get a bed.
So there is a rationale for expanding beds. I don't think anybody is opposed to Baystate creating this new facility. But I think the real issue that people have is, if you're closing these community-based hospital beds, will this new facility really cover the same as those same people? Will it serve their needs?
