ROANOKE COUNTY (WSLS 10) - Nearly a year after a plan to close Catawba Hospital, hundreds of thousands of dollars in new funding could bring new life to the mental health facility.
Representatives who worked to keep the hospital open in 2016 are now excited to hear that a proposed budget would extend health care to patients.
One of those excited about the budget is Delegate Joseph Yost from Pearisburg.
The proposed funding will be used to hire 10 direct care positions providing mental health and other treatments and services to patients at the 110-bed facility.
The additional staff is needed to address the increased number of admissions and discharges which has doubled since 2014. The money is only half of what the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services requested.
"We were not overly aware of this. We knew they were looking at the geriatric care in the commonwealth. Saw the final numbers come out this past Sunday when they reported the budget out from the House that included these dollars," said Yost.
The money is for the second year in the two-year budget. Yost believes it will be very unlikely for it not to continue in the 2018 General Assembly session.
The House version of the budget was passed last week. Yost expects the budget to be approved by the Senate by the end of the month.
Supervisor Martha Hooker of the Catawba Magisterial District wrote in an email statement:
I am pleased the proposed budget includes new staff positions for the Catawba Hospital and recognizes and appreciates the services the hospital provides the citizens and the community.
The Communications Director of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services also wrote in an email statement to WSLS 10's Irisha Jones:
Supports an additional 10 direct care workers in order to address staff-to-patient ratios at Catawba Hospital. The number of adult and geriatric temporary detention order admissions has doubled since 2014, with higher percentages of individuals requiring direct supervision.
FY 2017 FY 2018
General Fund $0 $805,281
This is half of what DBHDS requested.
This is the justification from the DBHDS budget request.
Catawba Hospital serves the entire Shenandoah Valley and a catchment area that runs from West Virginia in the north to North Carolina on the south for geriatric state hospital admissions and the largest metropolitan area in the Commonwealth west of Richmond for adult admissions. This increase in admissions and associated increase in average daily census has significantly enhanced the challenges of ensuring that discharge planning and other services are not compromised. Increased flow-through (turnover of beds) is essential to maintain capacity to assure beds are available for individuals in need of inpatient psychiatric services who cannot or will not be served by private sector behavioral healthcare units. Because of this, efficient and effective treatment with adequate numbers of clinical (including nursing) staff is essential.
There has also been a rise in the medical complexity of individuals admitted to Catawba Hospital resulting in increasing investments by all clinical staff to assess and properly treat co-morbid medical conditions among these increased admissions. It has been documented previously that the acuity of the clients served is increasing. It is evidenced in multiple ways which include increased costs for special hospitalizations (including an increase in costs with those requiring services within 30 days of admission) and a large volume of patients requiring direct observation for suicide, aggression or other high-risk behaviors. The need for direct observation is indicative of the acuity in that they necessitate direct observation to maintain patient and staff safety. In many of these cases, more complex and extensive care and treatment is required to focus on changing behaviors for those persons that reach defined thresholds of psychiatric and medical compromise as well as risk mitigation due to potential for harm to self or others.