Shutting Down A Psychiatric Hospital

Saint Francis Care Behavioral Health has announced the effective shutdown of the Portland Psychiatric Campus at 25 Marlborough St. in Portland, Connecticut, moving the remaing patients to other facilities. As recently as the late 1990s, the facility was one of the state’s largest private psychiatric hospitals.

In recent years, the facility has been rocked by controversy. In 1997, 11-year-old Andrew McClain died from traumatic asphyxia and chest compression while being restrained at the facility, when it was operated as Elmcrest. In January 2000, a female patient died after suffering cardiac arrest at the facility. According to the medical examiner, she died of "acute mixed drug intoxication." An investigation showed that she was taking as many as 12 different medications a day.

Last September, the state Department of Children and Families terminated a $9.8 million contract with the facility. Prior to the termination of the contract, however, records indicate that the state had investigated 34 incidents at the facility since the start of the contract.

According to papers filed with OHCA, St. Francis experienced an operating loss of $10,657,139 in fiscal year 2002, and is projected to experience an operating loss of $2.488 million in fiscal year 2004, even without the proposal to relocate the Chapman Unit to Hartford.

Officials from St. Francis Care Behavioral Health said the investigation and controversies in recent years have no bearing on the decision to relocate the remaining outpatient services at the Portland Campus to the Mt. Sinai Campus in Hartford.

St. Francis leases the facility from Portland. A local official hopes a new tenant will lease or sub-lease the facility. "It’s a very beautiful campus, so we are hopeful that there will be interest. The facility is obviously geared towards being a hospital, but that’s not to say that it couldn’t be used for other purposes," he said.

Maybe something more productive.