AMHI to cut population by closing one ward

AUGUSTA — One ward at the Augusta Mental Health Institute will close within a month because the resident population is low right now and the state should seize the opportunity to reduce the size of the hospital, the state’s mental health commissioner said Tuesday.

Commissioner Robert Glover and other AMHI officials told a legislative oversight committee that there are about 162 patients in psychiatric wards that are licensed to house up to 208. The 70-bed nursing home at AMHI is full.

Glover said he expected recommendations by Aug. 1 on how the ward closing should affect the number of patients at the hospital, where staff reductions should occur and how to restructure the remaining wards to best serve patients.

AMHI nursing director Katherine Guilbault said the hospital has about 50 fewer patients than it had at this time a year ago.

She said Glover had given the AMHI staff flexibility to suggest numerous options for reducing the size of the hospital. With one ward closed, there will be fewer patients and probably, as a result, fewer staffers, she said.

It is too early to estimate how many jobs would be cut, Guilbault said, but she said much of the reduction probably could be accomplished through attrition.

Glover, who served as temporary superintendent following a patient suicide May 6, said there has been improvements in the chain of command and staff accountability at the hospital in the past two months.

“Now when I go on a unit and ask who’s in charge I get a very clear answer. That’s different from when I went over there,” he said.

AMHI’s new superintendent, Linda Breslin, who started her job Sunday, told the committee she was committed to creating “a hospital you can be proud of.”

“My basic intention is to treat as many people as come through the door and get them back to their communities,” she said.

“Hopefully, people will realize it is a hospital. It is a medical hospital that has sick people living there,” she said. “This is not a half-way house.”