Hospital plan to shift veterans criticized: Substance abuse patients to join mentally ill patients

[Ian David]

Hospital plan to shift veterans criticized: Substance abuse patients to join mentally ill patients

By SUE REINERT
The Patriot Ledger

Some lawmakers and veterans’ advocates are up in arms over a Veterans Administration plan to move some substance abuse patients at the VA hospital in Brockton to a locked unit for mentally ill veterans.

The shift, which would last for two years, comes as experts predict that returning Iraq war veterans will need more mental health services from the VA healthcare system.

Veterans Administration officials said alcohol detoxification patients in Brockton will still get treatment but they will be housed with mentally ill veterans during two years of construction.

But Quincy veterans services agent Henry Bradley said veterans fear that the 28-bed detox unit, the only one on the East Coast that does not combine substance abuse patients with mentally ill veterans, won’t reopen after the construction project ends.

‘‘What they want to do is to get everybody out of there, and then when you need detox, send you to a locked psychiatric unit,’’ Bradley said yesterday. Staff in the program say that veterans ‘‘need the camaraderie’’ of an unlocked unit to recover, Bradley said.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Newton, alerted by Bradley and hospital workers, said yesterday he will oppose the plan if the VA carries it out. ‘‘It will be very troubling - a denial of service to people,’’ he said.

Frank said VA officials last week told his staff that they have put the project on hold because they don’t know whether they will have enough beds to handle demand during construction.

More:
http://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2007/03/06/news/news02.txt

[Wickerman]

1. This wouldn't be such a bad decision if it weren't only for housing

needs.

Actually, best practice these days seems to indicate that it makes sense to treat substance abuse and mental health issues as a whole as so many folks are seen with co-occurring disorders. Many orgs are joining their mental and chemical health units into one unit where they can perform intake as a collective then determine which services from both areas are needed.

To house both type of issues indiscriminately as solely a cost savings measure is reprehensible and good for Frank an others for speaking out to fight it.

[stillcool]

2. I wonder if the VA..

is as confusing as this article is. Why is it that a patient can only get the care they need depending on the bed they inhabit? Too bad 'locked units in a psychiatric ward' has such negative imagery, because of the history of the care received, and the stigma of mental illness.