State officials broke ground on Tuesday for the state’s new 25-bed psychiatric hospital in Berlin. It was a long day coming.
Michael Obuchowski, commissioner of the Department of Buildings and General Services, thanked the many advocates, officials and lawmakers who had worked tirelessly to bring the project to fruition. “This is the culmination of over 10 years of waiting, working and accomplishing our goal, which is to serve those people who are in need of our help as Vermonters,” Obuchowski told a small audience at the hospital site on Fisher Road.
News that the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state’s insurer, Lexington, LLC, will together cover about $30 million toward the total construction costs of $42.8 million for the state’s new regionalized mental health system made the celebration all the sweeter for the Shumlin administration, which pushed ahead with the project in spite of criticism during the election that the governor’s office did not have a clear idea of how much federal funding would be made available.
Gov. Peter Shumlin said state taxpayers will pay a fraction of the cost — between $12.5 million to $15 million for the projects. Lawmakers set aside $18 million in the capital bill for the state hospital last year.
The state anticipates receiving $17.5 million in insurance and FEMA funding for the new $28.5 million Berlin hospital, which will have capacity for 25 patients. The combined estimates from FEMA and insurance will also cover most of the $14 million in construction-related costs for the regional facilities in Brattleboro, Rutland, Morrisville and Middlesex. The Berlin facility is slated to open in the spring of 2014, Shumlin said.
“I have taken some heat over the last months for pushing ahead with this project without knowing exactly how the dollars would flow,” Shumlin said. “I take responsibility for that judgment. I recognized both the perils and opportunities, but I want to remind you that we had no other choice. That with our most vulnerable mental health patients not having a place to go, we didn’t have the option of doing what government does so well — waiting, thinking, planning, deliberating, arguing and hoping for a better day.”
Mark Landry, the state’s FEMA coordinating officer, said he is prohibited from making announcements of funding — “that right and privilege is with the congressionally elected officials” — but he said the documents submitted on Tuesday “represent our greatest confidence that within federal law policy and regulation those documents reflect a high level of confidence in the funding that the state of Vermont will receive based on eligible damage and eligible funding.”
Advocates for the mentally ill worked for 20 years to close the Vermont State Hospital to no avail. Proposal after proposal failed to garner the support of state leaders. In 2003, the federal government eliminated funding for the state’s psychiatric facility in response to several suicides and the determination that the treatment offered by the state-run facility was inadequate.
But the remnant of what was a sprawling mental institution in Waterbury continued to limp along, long after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had decertified the facility. From 2003 until 2011, the state lost about $10 million a year in federal funding for patients at the hospital.
It took a storm of epic proportions to finally close the hospital. Tropical Storm Irene damaged the facility, which housed 54 patients, in August 2011. The state moved quickly to place patients at community hospitals. The system has been in crisis ever since and a number of patients have had to wait in emergency rooms for care because there won’t enough treatment options available until the state is able to bring more psychiatric units on line.
Shumlin said his optimism that the federal government would come through has “borne fruit.” The governor took credit for moving ahead with the long-awaited facility and saving the state money along the way.
“We anticipate once the system is online we will once more enjoy the federal reimbursements that we deserve,” Shumlin said. “Put in very rough math, when we get those reimbursements back, we will pay for our entire new system in roughly a year and a half. There is no scenario where any governor could have said that to you with a straight face that I can think of the last 20 years of crisis.”
The information provided by the Shumlin administration does not give a breakdown of the insurance reimbursements and FEMA funding.
The Vermont State Employees Association lauded the Shumlin administration’s efforts. State workers traveled to locations all over the state to be with patients for months after the Vermont State Hospital was closed.
John Reese, president of VSEA, said the union is pleased by the administration’s willingness to push forward on project without knowing how much FEMA money had been secured. “It’s no secret to anyone that we needed a new Vermont State Hospital yesterday, and VSEA thanks the Governor for pressing forward to do what is right and what is necessary,” Reese said in a statement.
The union had pressed for a 54-bed facility because of concerns that the state would lose psychiatric care expertise by decentralizing the mental health system. The administration last year sought to build a 16-bed hospital. The administration and lawmakers increased the number of beds to 25 for the enabling legislation, Act 79. Last year, the administration announced layoffs for about 90 hospital employees.
Reese said the union still has concerns that the regionalized mental health system will not provide enough acute-care beds. “While VSEA is excited to move forward with the 25-bed facility, we agree with the position of the Vermont Psychiatric Association and Dr. Jay Batra, who just left his position as VSH’s medical director, that 25 beds is inadequate.”
