UMass to redirect patients to Clinton, Marlborough and Worcester sites

UMass Memorial Health Care 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 to make way for additional medical-surgical beds.

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By Emily Micucci

Facing opposition from the Worcester City Council, UMass Memorial Health Care spokesman Anthony Berry said Wednesday the hospital will redirect psychiatric patients to sites in Marlborough, Clinton and Worcester as the system moves forward with plans to close nearly half of the beds at its inpatient psychiatric unit on the University Campus in Worcester.

Berry said in an email on Wednesday the system will maximize services that are offered at the Psychiatric Treatment and Recovery Center, an acute psychiatric unit on Queen Street in Worcester, as well as services at Clinton Hospital and Marlborough Hospital, and Worcester-based Community Healthlink, which provides inpatient and outpatient mental health services under the UMass Memorial umbrella, to make up for the lost capacity at the University Campus.

In January, Berry said UMass Memorial was planning to partner with a new Devens inpatient behavioral health center, TaraVista, to recruit physicians to take care of patients in the region but further details were not available Wednesday.

The Worcester City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to oppose UMass Memorial Medical Center's plan to reduce its number of psychiatric-unit beds. The decision by the hospital has been harshly criticized by the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the union representing the nurses that work at the Worcester hospital.

UMass Memorial Health Care wants to reduce the number of beds in its inpatient acute psychiatric unit from 28 to 13 to make way for additional medical-surgical beds in the hospital's 8 East unit.

The council voted unanimously to oppose the plan after several current and former UMass nurses and several other mental-health specialists spoke out against it.

Berry released a statement after the council hearing.

"The UMass Memorial Medical Center leadership team has spent nearly two years of thoughtful planning, research and analysis and is convinced that this plan is not only the best course of action, but is also the right thing to do," he said. "These changes address critical hospital capacity issues and are in the best interest of our behavioral health and medical/surgical patients."

Berry said earlier this year that 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, he said

If approved, construction would begin in July, but no changes will take place until then. The project would last about a year, the hospital has said.