The D.C. government is searching for a new location for a critical psychiatric center now that struggling Greater Southeast Community Hospital has withdrawn from an agreement to housethe program there.
Through the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program, the District’s Department of Mental Health provides emergency evaluations and treatment for 280 adults annually at its six-bed facility on the D.C. General Campus. But the office has deteriorated to the point where it “now threatens the health and safety of both patients and … employees,” according to an emergency resolution recently adopted by the D.C. Council.
“We’ve started the process looking for other space, or even to see if the space we have now could be expanded to fit our needs,” said Phyllis Jones, spokeswoman for the mental health agency.
The existing facility, which regularly handles psychotic patients who require restraint, is not secure and has no space for medical assessment, no separate eating facility, and no way of guaranteeing patients their privacy, Jones said.
Council members last year agreed to finance a new facility at Greater Southeast, which accepts 40 percent of the psychiatric program’s inpatient referrals. But the hospital’s parent company, Envision Hospital Corp., backed out May 1, citing the impending sale of the hospital — a deal that has since fallen through. DMH, with the council’s resolution in hand, is now searching for alternative sites.
Envision’s retreat, and its general failure to improve or sell Greater Southeast, has invoked the ire of Council Member David Catania.
The company has declined to reopen talks “while maintaining the contradictory position that health care for District residents remains a top priority,” states a resolution introduced by Catania and unanimously adopted July 10. The hospital’s failure to come through “has stunted DMH’s ability to improve psychiatric care to vulnerable citizens.”
In the last three months Catania has sought power to issue subpoenas for Envision’s financial records, to allow the mayor to pursue a receivership and to lift a $1.2 million annual property tax break enjoyed by the hospital.
