UMass Memorial plans to cut psych beds by about half

UMass Memorial Medical Center is planning to close a number of beds in its inpatient psychiatric unit on the University campus in Worcester.

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By Emily Micucci

UMass Memorial Health Care said it has notified the state of plans to reduce the number of beds in its 28-bed inpatient acute psychiatric unit on the University campus in Worcester by about 50 percent, clearing the way for additional medical-surgical beds in the hospital’s 8 East unit.

UMass Memorial spokesman Anthony Berry said Thursday between 12 and 14 beds would be eliminated. The planned closures, which are subject to the review of the Department of Public Health and the Department of Mental Health, would coincide with a renovation of 8 East, according to a statement from Berry on Wednesday. If approved, construction would begin in July but no changes will take place until then. The project would last about a year, Berry said.

Berry said additional medical-surgical beds are needed to serve the growing needs of the community. A certain number of psychiatric beds will be maintained for patients with the most complex behavioral health needs, said Berry, but an exact figure wasn’t available by deadline Wednesday.

“We will be working closely with new psychiatric facilities that are opening in the region to assure that the needs of our behavioral health patients are being met,” Berry wrote.

That work includes a potential affiliation with a new behavioral care center in Devens, called TaraVista, to recruit physicians to take care of patients in the region, according to Berry, as well as further utilization of psychiatric services at the system's Marlborough Hospital and Clinton Hospital.

Southbridge-based Harrington HealthCare last month began accepting patients at its new inpatient behavioral health unit in Webster, and Heywood Healthcare of Gardner is planning to open the first phase of an inpatient substance abuse program at The Quabbin Retreat Center in Petersham in the fall.

A shortage of behavioral health services, including mental health treatment and addiction recovery, in the region remains. Inpatient psychiatric services can be difficult for providers to maintain because insurance reimbursements for those services is generally lower than reimbursements for other types of inpatient hospital stays.

David Schildmeier, spokesman for the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union organization representing nurses who work at the University campus, called the planned closures a "callous and dangerous decision" in a statement Wednesday.

Schildmeier cited data from the state's Mental Health Advisory Committee indicating that more than 40,000 patients board longer than 12 hours in Massachusetts emergency rooms annually because of a shortage of inpatient psychiatric beds.

Berry responded Thursday, saying in an email that the system is "committed to ensuring continuity of care for both behavioral health and medical-surgical patients during this process, and in creating critical capacity for the community by working with partners to expand overall regional access to psychiatric care."