Canteen Report To Chairs 03.16.10[1]
Canteen Report Attachments 03.16.10[1]

This plan begs another question: If a private company could run the canteen at enough of a profit to pay for upgrades in the space, then why couldn’t the DMH do this on it’s own? If they cannot run a small canteen operation with a $250,000 budget, then how can they be expected to run a $20 million hospital? I don’t think it’s a good idea to have only a portion of VSH privatized for these reasons. If it is going to be privatized then the whole of VSH should be privatized also.

Sincerely,

Curtis Sinclair

former VSH patient

and former VSH canteen coordinator

VTDigger

The Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital

The hamburger grill at the Vermont State Hospital Canteen may be fired up again on July 1, thanks to a last-ditch effort by mental health advocates to bring the snack bar back.

Last Friday, the House Appropriations Committee rejected a Senate provision mandating that the Canteen be reinstated as a budget-neutral program of the Department of Mental Health. Though no money was attached to the Senate amendment for the Canteen, it was interpreted as a potential cost to the General Fund by the Douglas administration and members of the House committee.

The Department of Mental Health closed the Canteen on Dec. 5 because officials said it would save approximately $80,000. Advocates, former patients and Vermont State Hospital workers fought the decision last fall because they said state officials had inflated the Canteen’s costs, added an unnecessary staff position and refused to allow the snack bar to raise prices. They asked Sen. Vince Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans, to propose legislation to reinstate the snack bar.

Advocates argue the facility offers the only reprieve for mental health patients who have earned the right to leave the wards of the Vermont State Hospital.

The former Canteen coordinator, Curtis Sinclair, said he was able to run the operation at a small profit until the department refused to let him modestly raise prices for food a few years ago.

The Senate language, which called for the Canteen to reopen as a budget-neutral program, was stripped from the House Appropriations Committee’s version of the budget adjustment bill last week, and came to a vote on the floor of the House Chamber on Tuesday morning.

The vote was presented as a double negative: A “no” vote would reinstate the Canteen without an appropriation; a “yes” would cut it altogether.

The language, as posed, was confusing to members, and in frustration, Speaker Shap Smith, who tried to explain it, resorted to telling members: “You want to vote ‘no’,” shortly followed by titters from the members and a correction: “That was inappropriate.”

In short order, however, that’s what they did: House members voted (115-6) against the House Appropriations Committee’s proposal to eliminate the Canteen. Three members — two from Barre – Paul Poirier, an independent, and Tom Koch, a Republican – spoke in favor of the Senate’s proposal to enable the Canteen to continue as a budget-neutral program.

Committee Chair Martha Heath, D-Westford, said they had not heard from mental health advocates at public hearings for the budget adjustment bill.

Heath said Mental Health Commissioner Michael Hartman testified that the State Hospital had installed vending machines in the former Canteen and patient activities might be held in the space.

“They felt to keep the Canteen open would cost $80,000 in General Fund dollars,” Heath said on the floor.

Heath said the committee felt Hartman’s time would be better spent helping the designated mental health agencies determine how to save $5.2 million under the state’s new restructuring initiative, “Challenges for Change.” In addition, the department is charged with developing the Vermont State Hospital Futures Project, which is designed to provide alternatives to the Waterbury facility for severely mentally ill patients, and making sure the Vermont State Hospital is recertified by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Recertification would make the state eligible for approximately $9 million for fiscal year 2011 in federal Medicaid funding.

Heath said the committee considered taking the bill back and revising it, but “since the amendment is budget-neutral, we don’t feel we have the time to do it.”

“This morning … you have received a flier in your mailbox (from advocates) and we understand that there will be a motion to defy this amendment and to take up this issue separately,” Heath continued. “We will be recommending that people vote based on the info they have.”

Rep. Poirier, I-Barre City, who said he has served as a public advocate for the Vermont State Hospital, was the first to speak on the issue.

“I oppose this amendment,” Poirier said. “You earn your way when you’re a patient at Vermont State Hospital. You have to demonstrate to staff you are not a threat to yourself or others. For many people the Canteen is the stimulus for people to change their behavior. It’s a place to order a hamburger that isn’t on the hospital menu.

“The canteen is the biggest carrot the hospital can offer a patient,” Poirier said. “There are many patients who agree to voluntarily to take medications in return for the promise they can access the Canteen.”

Poirier said under the Senate proposal, a plan will be developed to allow patients access to the cafeteria “with the caveat that the Canteen is privately run” and “cost neutral.”

He pointed out that the Canteen is an extension of the Legislature’s commitment to mental health parity. No hospital, he said, is without a restaurant where patients and family members can get together.

“One of the best gifts we can give the patients at the Vermont State Hospital is the ability to maintain their Canteen and give them the same rights people in a private hospital receive,” Poirier said.

Rep. Tom Koch said there’s no reason not to reopen the snack bar. “If we’re not going to save money by closing the Canteen, why are we closing it?” Koch asked. “If it’s not going to cost us, let’s keep it open. I will be voting no on the proposal before us that would strike the Senate language.”

Rep. Anne Donahue, R-Northfield, said Canteen privileges help patients manage their psychotic behavior and prepare them for community placement.

“This is not just about having a little R&R,” Donahue said. “The canteen is the most normalizing experience patients have, and closing it will have a clinical impact.”

She cited a statement from Terry Rowe, executive director of the Vermont State Hospital, who wrote to department personnel: “I think we are on dangerous grounds arguing this cost issue. We could raise prices, cut back on staff and provide limited services.”

Donahue said the proposal asks for the development of a plan by March that would put the Canteen operation in the black for the next fiscal year.

The Senate amendment reinstating the Canteen passed the House by an overwhelming majority.

VTDigger

On Tuesday morning the House is scheduled to vote on H.534. According to the House Calendar, Rep. Martha Heath, Chair of House Appropriations, will offer an amendment that includes striking the Senate language about the State Hospital canteen from the bill.

“We can always hide behind these challenging economic times as a reason not to do something. There are some things we can’t afford not to do and this is one of them. And the Senate proposal is cost neutral to the General Fund,” said Senator Vincent Illuzzi, after learning of the amendment to strike the Senate language. Former canteen manager Curtis Sinclair commented: “It’s incredibly cruel to punish the patients because the administration was so irresponsible.”

Sinclair sent records to Senators showing the canteen was self sustaining — even turning a modest profit until the hospital administration insisted on changes that made it operate at a loss. In internal correspondence VSH director Terry Rowe acknowledged the canteen’s importance to patients and staff, and admitted: “The fact is that we could raise prices, cut back on staff and not eliminate the service.”

Canteen supporters are rallying to preserve the Senate language, and delivering the attached flier to all House members.

Contact:

Ed Paquin, Executive Director
Disability Rights Vermont
ed@disabilityrightsvt.org

Ken Libertoff
Vermont Association for Mental Health
VAMH1@aol.com

VTDigger

I am writing to ask for your support of bill S.220 which would require the Vermont State Hospital to operate a canteen. I ran the hospital’s canteen between 2002 and 2009 when it was closed. After I took over the running of the Canteen in 2002 I was able to cut costs and increase revenues to the point where it broke even. That is important to know. The canteen can be a totally self-sustaining operation that does not cost the taxpayers of Vermont any money while providing a valuable service to the patients at VSH. I have attached a copy of figures from the 2005-2006 fiscal year that show the canteen operating at a $1036 profit.

The canteen could have kept running in the black, but for some reason the VSH administration decided that it was not necessary. In the following years I was denied permission to raise prices as costs increased. My figures were showing a $30,000 deficit for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, partly because of low prices and partly because of reduced patronage due to the recession. At a time when they should have been looking to reduce costs and staff, VSH administration added another staff person to the canteen against my wishes. This added $64,000 to my projected 2009-2010 deficit, putting it at $95,000. I continued to protest against the situation and was put on paid administrative leave. After being on leave for 3 months I was told the canteen was being shut down to save money. I argued with Commissioner Hartman and Secretary Hofmann to restructure the operation rather than shut it down, but they would not allow it. I am appalled that they chose to punish the patients because the VSH administration acted irresponsibly.

The patients at VSH have lost their library and gym over the years. They also lost another area they called the “hideaway” where they could meet in the evening to socialize and even play pool. Then last year they lost their canteen. Even the Corrections facilities, where convicted criminals are housed, have canteens and cafeterias for their inmates. It’s not right to treat sick people worse than convicted criminals. I speak from my own personal experience with being a patient at VSH. Time spent in the Canteen felt like freedom. It was the last place a patient could go and not feel like he was locked up in a restrictive psychiatric facility.

The canteen was also a vocational rehabilitation and occupational therapy tool, especially for those who were patients in VSH for a long period. I was in that situation years ago, fighting for my right not to be medicated. I was allowed to work in the canteen as a patient for most of my two year incarceration. That did more to help me that anything else. It also allowed me to prove that I could function without being medicated. In the end I was able to win that battle and get discharged without being drugged against my will. If it had not been for the canteen program I might be on disability. We had other VSH patients over the years who benefited greatly from working at the canteen. Please vote to restore this this program so that future patients can benefit from it also.

Sincerely,

Curtis Sinclair

former canteen coordinator and former VSH patient

VTDigger

Sen. Vince Illuzzi

Editor’s note: Sen. Vincent Illuzzi, R-Essex-Orleans, made the following comments about S.220, the bill he is introducing this legislative session that would require the Vermont State Hospital to re-open the Canteen, a snack bar that was available for patient use.

Of all the cuts at the Vermont State Hospital, this has generated a lot of opposition on several fronts.

One, there’s a serious dispute as to whether it’s a cost to the General Fund. A lot of folks believe that if they were allowed to charge the prices that they wanted to charge it would have been revenue neutral.

• Read S-220

Number two, and probably more important is the therapeutic effect of allowing patients with privileges to go to a store which resembles normal life somewhat detached from the confines of the state hospital.

One thing to be clear here, we’re not talking about the criminally insane. We’re not talking about people who are axe murderers or who have been committed to the hospital for having committed crimes. Many of these people have been there for most of their lives. They’re people who because of a birth defect or a traumatic injury of some type have been consigned to the care of the state hospital. For those who are able to earn privileges and are able to go there it seems as though it’s as therapeutic as anything that you can offer at that institution.

If we can figure out a revenue neutral way to keep it open that’s what I’m going to try to do.

The (administration’s) premise for (closing) it was that it was costing money. So obviously, if we pass a bill that says we’re going to open the canteen, and it’s not going to cost the General Fund any money, I can’t imagine that there’s going to be continued resistance. The arguments from the people who are running it were that they weren’t allowed to charge market prices and therefore it was running in the red.

We have to uncover more facts, but … if there’s a way we can get this thing re-opened we should do it.

VTDigger

Wasson Hall, new home of the Department of Mental Health

Budget cuts in state government can appear straightforward on paper. Agency heads find places to trim, or make wholesale changes in personnel, space or services, and the amounts add up to expected savings.

But the process of determining what gets cut and what doesn’t is complicated and can often look like card shuffling.

The way in which several recent budget decisions have been executed by Vermont’s Mental Health Department serves to illustrate in microcosm the Douglas Administration’s priorities, and how difficult it can be to wring savings out of program cuts or office shifts.

For this report, Vtdigger.org examined the department’s recent decisions to shut down the Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital and to move the department from Burlington to the state office complex in Waterbury.

These budget items are in the tens of thousands of dollars and seem like small potatoes relative to the department’s $130 million FY2010 budget, two-thirds of which came from the federal government this year.

But Rob Hofmann, Secretary of the Agency of Health and Human Services, doesn’t see such sums as insignificant. He says closing the Canteen will save $100,000 next year, and he says this is a sizeable budget item in light of the administration’s call for 8 percent across-the-board cuts in every agency.

“The state is facing this enormous shortfall. I liken it to we’re on the 3-yard line and we have 97 yards to go to balance the budget, and folks are saying we should go back a yard and not make this difficult choice,” Hofmann says. “Some people in the (mental health) community are concerned, but I think the majority of Vermonters are concerned that we have an obligation to manage the programs of the state to keep it in line and to keep it solvent.”

It’s less clear, however, how much money DMH and the state will save from the department’s move to Waterbury.

Wasson Hall gets a makeover

Last Friday, DMH closed the Canteen. On Monday, DMH moved into its newly renovated office space at nearby Wasson Hall, which features new windows, repointed brick and interior renovations. The three-story structure is also getting a new slate roof. (Gerry Myers, commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services, says he had hoped the roof would have been completed before the move-in date, but the first roofing contractor quit after laying a quarter of the slates, and a new contractor had to be found. The reslating was started from scratch, according to Myers.)

The price tag is $2.5 million, not including $47,000 for new hardwood furniture purchased from the Vermont Offender Work Program and a $33,000 contract with All Links, a Williston-based telecommunications firm, to install voice and data cabling in the building, according to state buildings officials and internal DMH budget documents. The new furniture and cabling costs came out of the Department of Mental Health’s budget, Myers says.

The department left its existing furniture at their previous location at 108 Cherry St., “which was a large savings,” Myers says, because dismantling and moving the furniture would have been expensive. It also would have added six days to the department’s move, says Beth Tanzman deputy commissioner of DMH.

The Agency of Health and Human Services agency, Tanzman wrote in an e-mail, “will also save money on the next move into the vacated space as it is already set up, powered, and cabled.”

The state of Vermont has three leases at the Burlington Town Center mall, including the Burlington District Office, which, according to Tanzman, will move into DMH’s vacated space (complete with the furniture that was left behind) at 108 Cherry. Myers says the district office lease, which expires at the end of May, is for $162,000. The new space will cost about $100,000 a year.

DMH’s annual savings in fees for space at its new digs in Wasson Hall will be about $15,000 a year, at best. Myers says the department paid about $99,000 for 8,198 square feet at 108 Cherry, and he says the department will use 7,534 square feet total at Wasson, at a cost of $84,000 a year.

But it’s unclear whether that will be the total cost to house all 41 DMH employees because Wasson is set up for 33 workers, and Tanzman says several staffers will work in an unspecified building. The department’s 9-person legal team will be located elsewhere on the state office complex campus.

The Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital closed on Dec. 5.

Canteen ‘survey’ conducted after story broke

Memos from the Department of Mental Health show that officials didn’t assess the impact of closing the Canteen on Vermont State Hospital patients until nearly a month after the decision to shut down the snack bar was finalized.

In comments cited in a previous Vtdigger.org story, Michael Hartman, the commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, appeared to be more concerned about how to minimize his agency’s staff cuts (complicated by the federal-state matching funds problem) than the impact closing the canteen would have on patients. For Hartman, it was a good-faith effort to choose the lesser of two evils—closing the Canteen instead of cutting more staff at the Vermont State Hospital (which would probably impact patients, too).

However, it was only after the initial story broke about the Canteen and hell started breaking loose that Hartman ordered a one-time “survey” of patients who had access to the Canteen — the only place hospital residents with privileges to leave the ward could go.

Jack McCullough, a regular contributor to the Vermont news blog Green Mountain Daily and director of the Vermont Legal Aid office in Waterbury, was the first to report on Oct. 15 that the state was closing the Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital. The Burlington Free Press picked up the story on Oct. 16. The patient count used as a justification for closing the Canteen wasn’t ordered until even later — Oct 18.

In an e-mail marked “urgent” and sent on that date to Terry Rowe, executive director of the Vermont State Hospital, Hartman asked Rowe to count the number of patients who had access to the snack bar.

Not until Oct. 19 were supervisors on three wards asked to generate a patient count from the previous Friday. They reported that 23 patients out of a total of 51 could gain access to the snack bar in the basement of the Dale Building. The remaining 28 could not leave the secured areas of the hospital because they pose a “risk of harm to others.”
Tanzman insists an earlier survey was unnecessary because the decision to close the Canteen was based on the VSH staff’s working knowledge of patients with buildings and grounds privileges.

Also, Hofmann says, the Canteen didn’t primarily serve patients.

“The overwhelming majority of people who patronize the Canteen are not patients at the VSH,” Hofmann says. “Most of the patients VSH cannot go there under any circumstances. Only two, three, four could go without supervision. A few more in a group could go, or with one-on-one accompaniment, which is a strain on staff resources.”
Patient advocates disagree. They say the snapshot survey belies the fact that most patients who left the hospital eventually gained access to the snack bar as part of their transition to the community.

In response, Hofmann says, “Is there any possibility that the person who could not go today could go in two weeks or two weeks ago? I think that’s a fair question.” The department, in its survey, however, didn’t attempt to answer that question.

Internal resistance to closing the Canteen

Curtis Sinclair, the Canteen coordinator, pleaded with Hartman in a series of e-mails and public records requests to keep the snack bar open. In one letter, he alleged that the Canteen could have broken even if he had been allowed to raise prices.

Hartman forwarded the e-mail to Rowe and she responded with concerns about closing the Canteen. “I am aware that we have not wanted to make a profit on the canteen, but I was unaware that we were forcing prices down,” Rowe wrote on Oct. 29. “I think we are on dangerous grounds arguing this cost issue. The fact is we could raise prices, cut back on staff and not eliminate the service.”

She went on to write, “I think the reason you selected the canteen for closure was about preserving essential functions at DMH. I think a presentation of why that is crucial would be very helpful. I think most people would understand it as a reasonable decision.”

Nearly a month earlier, she was vehement in her support of the Canteen. On Oct. 1 she wrote the following to Heidi Hall, finance director for the department.

“Most patients at the VSH have a gradual increase in privileges which allows them to leave the Brooks Building (VSH) and go to the canteen as part of their preparation for community placement. Patients are motivated to go to the canteen for drinks, snacks, and, in one patient’s case, his daily food intake (he is a male anorexic who will only eat canteen food). VSH uses the canteen as an incentive for patients to develop new skills to manage their psychotic symptoms or difficult behaviors.”

“VSH staff,” she continued, “eat at the canteen on weekends when they have their 30-minute lunch breaks; most hospitals have cafeterias for visitors, patients, and employees. It would be sorely missed.”

In a recent telephone interview, Rowe stood by her written statements. One of the advantages of the Canteen was its proximity to the hospital, Rowe says. The location was important, because if a patient had a problem, the hospital staff could respond quickly.

Possible compromise?

Rowe says there is a possibility the hospital will continue to use the space for patient activities.

“We’re trying to think of how we might use that space,” Rowe says. “How else would we use it as an incentive for patients?”

If so, it’s not clear how VSH will save $30,000 in rent for the space.

When asked about the lost rent savings in this scenario, Hofmann announced that he will entertain proposals for the reopening of the Canteen by a separate nonprofit entity.

“Some folks have made the contention that this can be run as a money maker, and if that’s the case, we welcome (that),” Hofmann says. “Or if they think it can be run and operate at a moderate loss and can shoulder that, we are very open and willing.”

VTDigger

Curtis Sinclair fought the closing of the Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital where he worked as the manager.

After months of waiting for the axe, Curtis Sinclair was officially laid off today. He ran the Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital and was downsized with five other people who worked at the snack bar in a basement room adjacent to the mental health facility. The Canteen was shuttered on Friday.

Advocates fought the closing of the Canteen because they say the snack bar was the only place for mentally ill patients from the hospital to get a break from the wards. Last month, former patients, VSH workers and activists embarked on a letter-writing campaign and held a press conference at the Statehouse.

It looks like they retaliated against me. There was no porn on that computer. There’s no good explanation for it.”
~Curtis Sinclair

Sinclair was the unlikely crusader who led that charge. The soft-spoken 46-year-old from South Burlington wanted his job back, but he was also infuriated that the state was closing the Canteen, because he knows firsthand what it has meant to patients.

Sinclair was held involuntarily at the hospital for two years; volunteering at the Canteen, he says, was his only outlet.

When he was released in 1996, after a drawn-out battle with the hospital over its forced medication policy, he again turned to the Canteen as a refuge – this time for work. He started out as an assistant, and seven years ago he became the coordinator, effectively managing the snack bar.

“When I was a patient, they let me work there,” Sinclair says. “I would have gone nuts if I hadn’t had a job. How was I going to get a job with two years in the psych ward?”

Sinclair now faces a labyrinth of daunting new obstacles in the wake of the canteen’s closing.

He must try to find work after being part of the VSH system as a patient and employee for 15 years. Perhaps even more devastating is the fact that he’s been in limbo since last summer; on June 22, he was put on administrative leave, allegedly for computer misuse. The investigation went on for more than six months, Sinclair says. He asserts he was never told what he was accused of.

He requested a copy of his personnel file, and in performance evaluation reports, from 1999-2003, Sinclair was commended for his work ethic and given excellent or outstanding ratings by his supervisor. Sinclair says his last evaluation was in 2003.

“It looks like they retaliated against me,” Sinclair says. “There was no porn on that computer. There’s no good explanation for it. They could have said there were some personal e-mails … but everybody does that. They don’t want me back because I was upsetting the apple cart.”

Michael Hartman, commissioner of the Department of Mental Health, wouldn’t comment on Sinclair’s case.

When Sinclair fought the closing of the Canteen, he wanted to prove that the nonprofit snack bar’s budget had been break-even until a few years ago, but because he was locked out of his work computer, he didn’t have access to the budgets he’d kept for VSH.

Sinclair doggedly sent e-mails to Hartman and his VSH supervisors questioning their budget figures, arguing that the snack bar was an important outlet for patients, and insisting that the Canteen would have broken even had he been allowed to raise prices.

This isn’t the first time Sinclair has fought the system. In a series of articles that ran in the Sunday Rutland Herald and Times Argus in 1995-1996, former Herald reporter Yvonne Daley recounted the battle he waged against doctors who wanted to forcibly medicate him while he was involuntarily held at the Vermont State Hospital.

The story of how Sinclair ended up in the Vermont State Hospital in the first place, and the personal odds he has overcome, help to explain why his job at the Canteen is so important to him.

Sinclair’s parents were both alcoholics. One day, when his mother was drinking, she killed the family dog. Several times, he says, she set herself on fire and wound up in the hospital.

“I don’t remember a night she wasn’t drunk,” Sinclair says. He recalls feeling guilty about the relief he felt when she died after a stint in the hospital.
He was 13. “I remember thinking, ‘Thank God it’s over.’ Then I thought, what a terrible thing to think, but she was suffering. We were all suffering.”

At South Burlington High School, Sinclair says he didn’t make friends and was constantly teased by other students. He also claims he was bullied by teachers and the administration. The assistant principal, Sinclair says, made fun of his acne, called him a chronic masturbator and once sprayed him with Lysol. He wanted to drop out after several teachers told him they wouldn’t give him college references, but his chemistry teacher pressured him to finish his senior year.

Sinclair stuck it out and went on to study chemistry at UVM. After he graduated in 1984, he couldn’t find work.

“I thought I’d get a job where I didn’t have to work around people,” Sinclair says. “After a while, though, you haven’t worked and people won’t hire you because you haven’t worked. It became really humiliating.”

He bused tables for a while and helped his father take care of their house in South Burlington.

In 1994, Sinclair accused a teacher who lived in his neighborhood of failing to report that a colleague was molesting students at South Burlington High School. An altercation ensued, and Sinclair “struck him with a glancing blow,” according to the Times Argus report.

Sinclair was involuntarily admitted to the Vermont State Hospital and diagnosed with a delusional disorder, according to the Times Argus report.

He says he was misdiagnosed, and he refused anti-psychotic medications, including Risperdal and Haloperidol, known as Haldol. The side effects of such drugs, he says, scared him. Both drugs can cause involuntary twitching, drooling and anxiety, among other things.

Sinclair, who had vowed as a teenager never to drink alcohol, smoke or even drink coffee, was adamant.

“There was no way I was going to take these drugs,” Sinclair says.

For two years, Sinclair argued that he was not delusional and that the anti-psychotic medications “would do him no good,” according to the Times Argus account. At one point, an attorney for the Vermont Department of Mental Health told Sinclair he might never be released from the hospital unless he agreed to be medicated.

Sinclair eventually won his release under a 1985 Vermont law that guarantees the right of a patient to refuse medication unless a court finds that the patient is not mentally competent, according to the Times Argus story.

He says the one thing that kept him going while he was held against his will at the hospital was volunteering for the Canteen. And when he finally was released, he continued to work for the snack bar, eventually working his way up to de facto manager.

It was his first real job, and he is worried it will be difficult to find another one.

Related story:

Will the state save $156,000 when it closes the Canteen? Not Really

VTDigger

Advocates, employees and former patients are outraged by Douglas administration’s decision to close the Canteen at the Vermont State Hospital. They say it’s the only place left for patients to get a break from the hospital’s locked down wards. In order of appearance: Malcolm Sawyer, former VSH patient; Joe Yoder, a psychiatric technician for VSH; Sarah Lunderville, executive director of the Vermont Center for Independent Living; Curtis Sinclair, Canteen coordinator; and Michael Sabourin, a patient advocate.

VTDigger

Vermont State Hospital

Letter-writer: Make judicious cuts without eliminating entire programs

Editor’s note: This open letter to Agency of Human Resources Sec. Robert Hofmann is from Curtis Sinclair, the coordinator for the canteen at the Vermont State Hospital. It was also sent to Gov. James Douglas.

Hello Secretary Hofmann,

I am writing to you and the Governor’s office directly because an important program at the Vermont State Hospital is being cut for no good reason. I run this program, the hospital’s Canteen. After I took over the running of the Canteen in 2002 I was able to cut costs and increase revenues to the point where it broke even. That is important to know. This canteen can be a totally self sustaining operation that does not cost the taxpayers of Vermont any money while providing a valuable service to the patients at VSH.

I realize the philosophy at this time seems to be cuts to positions, but I don’t see how you can take something away from Vermont’s most needy and sick people. The patients at VSH have lost their library and gym over the years. They also lost another area they called the “hideaway” where they could meet in the evening to socialize and even play pool. Now there are losing the last common meeting area where they can relax and socialize.

I can speak from my own personal experience with being a patient at VSH. Time spent in the Canteen feels like freedom. It is the one place a patient can go and not feel like he is locked up in a restrictive psychiatric facility. Patients at VSH should not be treated like prisoners. They deserve and need time to relax.

The Canteen is also an invaluable vocational rehabilitation and occupational therapy tool, especially for those who are stuck in VSH for a long period. I was in that situation years ago, fighting for my right not to be medicated. I was allowed to work in the Canteen as a patient for most of my two year incarceration. That did more to help me that anything else. It also allowed me to prove that I could function without being medicated. In the end I was able to win that battle and get discharged without being drugged against my will. If it had not been for the Canteen program I might be on disability. We have had other VSH patients in the years since then who have benefited greatly from working at the Canteen. Please don’t take this program away from them.

If you need to cut positions it is possible to make judicious cuts without eliminating entire programs. The Canteen could easily function with one less full time worker. Why cut three positions and lose a valuable asset when you can cut one and save that asset? I’m sure two cuts can be found in other areas without eliminating services for Vermont’s most vulnerable people.

Sincerely,

Curtis Sinclair
Canteen coordinator

VTDigger