| State
to Close 9 Inpatient Sites Within 3 Years.
Teresa M. Hanafin, Globe Staff Date:
June 20, 1991
Gov. Weld has accepted a panel's recommendation to close
nine mental health facilities and public health hospitals
within the next three years. The decision reflects the Weld
administration's goal of privatizing many functions performed
by state agencies. The state commission that made the recommendation
yesterday said the closings would save taxpayers $60 million
a year. Administration officials said the closings would
start in three to four months, although some facilities
will not be shut for three years. The consolidation does
not need legislative approval. Despite Weld's assurances
that no patient will be moved and no facility closed until
clients and patients are placed in an "equal or better
appropriate care setting," mental health activists
warned that the closings could have a devastating effect
on patients and increase homelessness. A state employees
union official also warned the plan could cause hundreds
of state workers to lose their jobs. The commission, appointed
by Weld, issued a 100-page blueprint for consolidating the
state's inpatient health care and human service system.
It calls for the phasing out of three public health hospitals,
three mental health hospitals and three facilities for mentally
retarded people. Their patients will be transferred to private
facilities.
About 1,875 patients of the 6,500 now served by the system
will be moved. The nine inpatient facilities represent about
one quarter of the state institutions that remain open.
The 17-member commission estimated the closings could save
$144 million in one-time costs. When all the facilities
are shut, the state will save $60 million annually in operating
costs. Administration officials said they could not accurately
estimate the cost of the consolidation plan, but said $14
million in the mental health department budget and another
$6 million in the health and human services account will
be used for the transition. The facilities slated to close
are Danvers State Hospital, Northampton State Hospital and
Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, which care for mentally
ill patients; the Paul A. Dever State School in Taunton,
the John T. Berry School in North Reading and the Foxborough
campus of Wrentham State School, which treat mentally retarded
clients; and Cushing Hospital in Framingham, Lakeville Hospital
in Middleborough and Rutland Heights Hospital, public health
hospitals that provide long-term chroni c care. Under the
plan, some patients at Danvers, for example, will be moved
to Tewksbury Hospital, which has about 200 empty beds. Patients
at Northampton State Hospital will be relocated to Holyoke
Hospital and Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. State
health officials will have to negotiate transfers with private
hospitals, a process they said will be made easier by the
number of empty beds that hospitals want to fill.
David Forsberg, secretary of health and human services and
chairman of the commission, said the closing of the public
health hospitals will start in three to four months, mental
health institutions in about a year, and facilities for
mentally retarded people in about three years.
Despite administration assurances, some mental health activists
and legislators remained skeptical of the plan. Drawing
the most fire was the commission's plan to create more than
2,000 so-called community-based residential beds, at a time
when funding for such programs has been cut and mental health
workers laid off. Also, 300 patients who need inpatient
care would be transferred to general hospitals, and 200
would be moved into nursing homes. Advocates said they feared
that mental health patients who are moved out of state hospitals
into group homes or other community programs will no longer
receive the comprehensive care they now get. "We're
worried about their future," said Eileen Trainor of
Melrose, president of the board of the Alliance for the
Mentally Ill of Massachusetts. "It's not just housing
they need; there's also case management, crisis intervention,
respite care, and much more." She pointed to the state's
last round of state hospital closings: "The present
problem of thousands of persons with mental illness wandering
our streets homeless and without treatment is a direct result
of previous deinstitutionalization efforts, and we do not
want to see the mistakes of the past repeated."
But Weld said he was "absolutely determined not to
let history repeat itself." Forsberg said the closing
of institutions and displacement of thousands of clients
in the 1960s "was so mishandled . . . that I don't
blame people for being cautious and worried." But he
repeated Weld's assurances that no patients would be moved
until proper places were found or created for them. But
Reps. Marc R. Pacheco (D-Taunton) and Joan M. Menard (D-Somerset)
called the plan "callous, unfair and, at best, ill-advised."
In a joint statment, they said they were particularly upset
at the commission's call for the closing of the Dever school,
which houses 300 patients and has undergone $50 million
in renovations in the past 15 years, and Lakeville Hospital.
The loss of 1,370 jobs at the two facilities combined will
hurt the southeast region of the state economically, and
cause it to "fall into a dangerous tailspin,"
said the legislators, who vowed to fight implementation
of the plan. Laura Spencer, human services coordinator for
a state employees union -- Council 93 of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees -- and a commission
member, filed a dissenting report arguing that the consolidation
removes the "state's safety net for its most helpless
citizens." Although the commission and Weld promised
to encourage private facilities accepting transferred patients
to hire some of the nearly 2,000 state employees who work
at the nine institutions, Spencer said some job losses are
inevitable and could total hundreds of workers. Although
about 1,900 patients receive treatment at the nine facilities
to be closed, the plan calls for the creation of 2,800 slots
because the number of patients being treated at any one
time fluctuates.
Belchertown State School, run by the mental retardation
department, already is being phased out, and the Solomon
Carter Fuller center's Dorchester campus, run by the mental
health department, has been shut. Weld said the state's
34 facilities were built to treat 35,000 patients and clients,
and now serve less than one-fifth that many people. He called
many of the state's facilities "huge, underutilized
and antiquated institutions" with huge maintenance
costs that the state no longer can afford. Meanwhile, employees
of Taunton State Hospital filed a lawsuit last week against
various state agencies charging that recent layoffs and
reassignment of mental health workers violate state law.
According to the suit, law prohibits state officials from
removing or reassigning employees without their consent.
Named in the suit are the mental health department, Executive
Office of Human Services and the Nurses Association. Last
week, Bristol County Superior Court Judge Chris Byron granted
a temporary restraining order to prevent the employees from
being reassigned or "bumped" by others with more
seniority. Another hearing is scheduled tomorrow.
Move
to Close Facilities May Benefit Tewksbury
Aaron Zitner, Boston Globe June 30,
1991
TEWKSBURY -- Tewksbury Hospital, a significant local employer,
could pick up 250 new patients, a variety of capital improvements
and, officials say, momentum that may draw other programs
to town if a plan now before Gov. Weld is accepted. A special
commission report on the state's public health hospitals
and mental health facilities, given to Weld June 19, spelled
out good news for Tewksbury Hospital and its 880-acre campus,
which have been underutilized in recent decades. Meanwhile,
to the east in North Reading, the same commission report
has led to fear and concern among families of residents
at the John T. Berry Rehabilitation Center, which will meet
an opposite fate. The special commission has decided that
Berry should close, and families are now fighting to reverse
that decision. These are the local winners and losers in
the sweepstakes that state health facilities involuntarily
entered earlier this year, when Weld appointed a commission
to look into consolidating and closing public health hospitals
and in-patient mental health centers. The result: nine facilities
will close, including the Berry center, which has 101 mentally
retarded residents. Several facilities will pick up new
residents, including Tewksbury Hospital, which now has about
500 patients, most of whom have chronic health problems.
The 17-member commission said the closings would save $60
million a year in operating costs. They would also help
achieve Weld's goal of privatizing many functions now performed
by the state. In Tewksbury, news of new patients is good
news. "First and foremost, this has community acceptance,"
said Rep. James Miceli (D-Wilmington), who called the hospital
"the biggest and most consistent" employer in
town. Miceli said state officials have pledged almost $12
million for renovations, personnel and other costs, "and
all of this will guarantee that the hospital will remain
a viable institution. It strengthens the hospital."
The new patients will come from Cushing Hospital in Framingham
and from Danvers State Hospital, both of which are expected
to close. In its main hospital building, Tewksbury has about
250 empty beds, most of them in five wards that are unused.
The new patients and cash may give other parts of the hospital
a push. Founded in the 1854 as an almshouse, much of the
hospital's 880-acre campus is now unused. Raymond Sanzone,
the hospital's executive director, said at least 150,000
square feet of space in a dozen buildings is now dormant
and could be rented out, though much of it would require
costly renovations. "The more volume we have here,
the more people will be exposed to the hospital and the
property, and I would bet we would be getting more proposals
for the use of dormant space," Sanzone said.
In North Reading, on the other hand, there is mixed reaction
to the commission report. Some families of Berry residents,
most of whom come from Middlesex and Essex counties, want
to keep the center open. They are seeking a meeting with
the governer and will try to persuade him to make some changes
in the 100-page commission report. Berry operates in conjunction
with another residential center for the mentally retarded,
the Charles V. Hogan Regional Center in Danvers. Under the
commission plan, many Hogan and Berry residents would be
moved to private community-based group homes, which have
yet to be established. The remaining residents would be
housed at Hogan. But some families prefer Berry to Hogan.
"Berry is an ideal place," said Carol Trodella
of Reading, whose 42-year-old brother has lived at Berry
for seven years. "The governor has said nobody will
be moved unless it's an equal or better placement. Well,
any move out of Berry would be a worse placement."
Trodella and Judy Lynch of Tewksbury, who also has a brother
at Berry, said Hogan is more restrictive than Berry, which
has 115 forested acres and an open, park-like feel. Worse
than moving to Hogan, however, is the prospect of their
brothers moving to some other unspecified institution. That
may well happen, they say, because the state has overestimated
the number of families that want their wards to move into
community settings.
In fact, Trodella said, a family-run poll of Berry guardians
showed that only five of 100 families want their family
members placed in the community. If the feeling is similar
among Hogan families, more residents will want to stay in
state institutions than Hogan can handle.
That's a scary prospect for Trodella, who sees her brother,
Ernest Brooks, in her own home twice each week. Trodella
said her brother often had violent outbursts and was sullen
before moving to Berry. "He is very, very happy now,"
she said. "He smiles all the time. He enjoys his music
again. He likes to come here and have his ice cream. He
has a sense of where he is." Those joys were all missing
before, she said. At the same time, some town officials
see an opportunity in the Berry closing. North Reading has
never been able to tax the Berry center, which was a government
tuberculosis hospital before converting to a center for
the mentally ill in the early 1960s. Selectmen chairman
Stephen O'Leary has said the town has "a sincere interest
in seeing the property returned to the local tax rolls."
Town administrator Stephen Daly noted that North Reading
lost about 50 acres of taxable property last year when the
Postal Service built a mail distribution center. But some
residents don't like the prospect of an industrial or business
complex replacing the quiet Berry center. "Revenue
would come into the town, but you'd be commercializing a
beautiful part of the town," said Shirley May, who
works at and lives near the center.
Before that could happen, all state agencies would have
to say that they do not want the Berry land. Once that happens,
the land will be offered to local and county governments,
which can be given portions only for public use. In North
Reading, for example, selectmen have said they want to preserve
several acres of the Berry land that are near one of the
town's drinking water wells. Land not claimed by local government
will be put up for sale by the state. North Reading would
have to rezone the land from its current residential status
before industry or businesses could move in. While Weld
has said no patients will move before services are in place,
a health and human services spokesman said the department
timetable calls for Berry to be closed within 18 months.
The movement of patients to Tewksbury Hospital could be
complete by next spring, Sanzone said.
Mayor Flynn Hits Weld to Shut
3 State Mental Hospitals. Tanya
Fish, August 31, 1991
Mayor Flynn yesterday blasted the
Weld administration's decision to close three mental health
facilities in the state. Under Weld's plan, Danvers State
Hospital, Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, and Northampton
State Hospital will be closed. The possibility of replacing
current state-funded community mental health centers with
contracted mental health services is also being considered.
During a press conference at Boston City Hospital, Flynn
expressed concern that many patients affected by the closings
will end up in city shelters. Boston now provides two-thirds
of the state's shelter beds. "We must never . . . tolerate
people being released to the streets with no place to go,"
said Flynn. "And we need to stop using emergency shelters
as de facto mental health facilities." In the past,
deinstitutionalization has led to many mentally ill patients
being released from mental health facilities and left without
necessary support services. Some have ended up in shelters
or on the streets. "And it would seem to me that instead
of closing state mental health facilities, the state should
look at using them to house clients such as those at the
Pine Street Inn, which every night houses over 300 mentally
ill homeless people who were forgotten in the disaster of
deinstitutionalization," he said. Flynn outlined three
conditions that should be met before these facilities are
closed: - Establish a long-term housing plan for every individual
being moved from one of the facilities. - Begin to take
care of the needs of homeless mentally ill people now in
city shelters. Make adequate 24-hour emergency care available
to mentally ill people.
Town
Meeting to Consider Future of Danvers State Hospital Site
John Laidler, Boston
Globe, November 29, 1998.
After years of delay, the process of finding new uses for
the property that once housed the Danvers State Hospital
appears to be gathering momentum. A plan to rezone 72 acres
of land that was formerly part of the hospital campus was
recently completed by a committee of town residents in concert
with state officials. Should the zoning plan be approved
by a special Town Meeting Jan. 25, it would clear the way
for the state to sell the property to one or more developers.
State officials said they intend to begin marketing the
property in January, when they release requests for proposals
from developers. Stephen J. Hines, assistant commissioner
of the state's Division of Capital Asset Management, said
he expected agreements could be reached to sell the property
by next summer, provided there is a zoning plan in place.
Danvers State Hospital, located near the juncture of routes
95 and 62, closed in 1992 as part of a plan by the Weld
administration to shut down or consolidate state-owned hospitals.
But for years, pledges by the state to find use for the
land went unfulfilled, prompting growing frustration among
officials in Danvers and neighboring Middleton.
The recent activity was set in motion in November 1996 when
the Legislature authorized the state to sell or otherwise
dispose of the hospital property and to bond up to $5 million
to pay for costs associated with the disposition. Rizzo
Associates of Natick was hired to conduct a survey of the
property to determine which areas might be suitable for
development. They also reactivated discussions with the
local committee about what uses might be allowed on the
property, and hence what zoning changes would be needed.
The Board of Selectmen on Nov. 17 voted to forward the zoning
plan to the Planning Board, which is scheduled to hold a
public hearing Tuesday, Dec. 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Essex
Agricultural and Technical Institute. The Planning Board
and the Finance Committee will make recommendations on the
changes to Town Meeting. Robert Pariseau, chairman of the
local citizens' committee, which first developed a blueprint
for future use of the hospital land in 1994, said last week
he was encouraged by the recent events. "We are starting
to see some action," Pariseau said. With the survey
work done, the land declared surplus and money authorized
by the Legislature, "We can start moving forward as
a town, go through the process, and get this property, particularly
the buildings, hopefully occupied," he added.
Hines said the state also is optimistic that the process
is on track.
"The key to all these development projects is the enactment
of legislation" authorizing the process, "and
the working out of zoning for the property that the local
community finds acceptable, and which allows the kinds of
uses that would enable us to sell the property to a private
developer . . . With these major hurdles behind us, I see
no reason to think we can't find some developers who would
be very interested in redeveloping the property," he
said. Hines said the recent redevelopment of the former
Cushing Hospital in Framingham offered an encouraging example
of how the Danvers State situation might unfold. After conducting
a similar process in that town, the state sold a portion
of the the land to a private developer, who is constructing
an assisted living facility. Remaining portions were transferred
to the town to use as open space and for recreation. In
its 1994 reuse plan, the citizens' committee in Danvers
looked at the 500 acres of state-owned land in Danvers and
Middleton that included the site of the former hospital.
Included were 225 acres of agricultural fields, the Charles
V. Hogan Center, which is a residential facility for the
mentally retarded, a state Department of Youth Services
facility, and buildings occupied by the Special Olympics
and the Center for Addictive Behavior. In the latest plan,
the committee identified 72 acres in Danvers that can be
developed, including 54 on the hilltop around the Gothic-style
Kirkbride building, and 18 lowland acres, according to Pariseau.
The 72 acres of developable land are within about 150 acres
that are earmarked for rezoning. According to Hines, the
bulk of the remaining 80 acres or so is agricultural land
that will be preserved under the care of the Department
of Food and Agriculture. It also includes property leased
to the Center for Addictive Behavior, property sold to the
Special Olympics, a number of intermediate care houses that
will continue to be operated by the state departments of
Mental Health and Mental Retardation, and the old hospital
cemetery, which will be preserved.
The proposed zoning plan follows the basic usage recommendations
developed by the citizens' committee in 1994, although it
has revised some of the processes that developers would
have to follow. Under the current plan, a number of uses
would be allowed in the zone as a matter of right, including
offices, research labs, service businesses excluding automobile
repairs, farming, and educational uses. The plan would also
allow, through special permit, multi-purpose developments
involving integrated commercial and/or residential uses.
Among the different uses that could be combined in such
lots would be offices and research labs, convention, conference
and meeting facilities, hotels and motels, nursing homes,
educational facilities, hospital and health care facilities,
and specialized elderly residence and care facilities. And
a number of secondary uses would be allowed within the mixed
developments as long as they do not exceed 30 percent of
the gross floor area. Examples are single- and multicluster
subdivisions, and child and adult day care facilities. While
the plan does not guarantee the preservation of the Kirkbride
building and the other historic structures on the property,
state and local officials say developers will be encouraged
to incorporate those buildings into their plans. Pariseau
said the committee's intent has been to allow for the site
to be reused but in a way that does not impose heavy new
burdens on the town, or degrade the historic character of
the site. "This is part of what Danvers has been known
for, that particular hill and the visual effect of the whole
area. We've tried very hard to retain that character,"
he said.
Marie
Rose Balter of Danvers 68: was coauthor of "Nobody's
Child" August 8, 1999
Marie
Rose (Barbara) Balter, of Danvers, coauthor of the award-winning
autobiography, "Nobody's Child," which explored
her life and mistaken commitment to a state mental hospital,
died at Beverly Hospital on Friday. She was 68. Mrs. Balter,
wife of the late Joseph Balter, was orphaned as a child
and lived in foster homes until adopted by Jack and Accursia
Barbara. At 17, while living in a boarding school, she suffered
from depression and was hospitalized at Danvers State Hospital,
the former county lunatic asylum, for more than 20 years.
Doctors there reportedly treated her for schizophrenia,
aggravating her mood disorder, and when she left she pledged
to dedicate her life to those she left behind. She also
made a commitment to continue her education. Mrs. Balter
received a degree in psychology from Salem State College,
a master's degree from Harvard University, and in 1984 was
awarded an honorary doctorate by Salem State College. She
sought to bring hope and peace to the world by fostering
harmony in community and family life, both in America and
abroad. She made 10 trips to bring medical supplies and
financial help to refugees.
During appearances on American and European television,
she promoted faith, trust in God, peace and forgiveness.
She started the Mystical Rose Center for Peace and became
a member of the Third Order of Carmelites. While at Harvard
she received the "Wonder Woman Award," given to
women who epitomized the traits of Wonder Woman. During
that time, her professor, Dr. Richard Katz, coauthored "Nobody's
Child," which won actress and producer Marlo Thomas
an Emmy for its television version. Her awards include the
American Heroine Award for Outstanding Achievement in the
field of Mental Health, America's Award of Hope, and a prize
for unsung heroes that was presented by President George
Bush in 1990. In 1995, she was presented the Christopher's
Award, given to only 50 people worldwide, and Boston television
station WGBH aired "Beyond Mental Illness: The Journey
of Marie Balter," a documentary sequel to "Nobody's
Child." She recently completed a new book titled "A
Burning Ember." She leaves a stepson, a stepdaughter,
and many nieces, nephews, and grandchildren. A funeral Mass
will be said Tuesday at 10 a.m. at St. Mary of the Annunciation
Church, Danvers
|
