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Massachusetts BH hospital plans layoffs, considers closing beds
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
mental health weekly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1556-7583
pISSN - 1058-1103
DOI - 10.1002/mhw.32368
Subject(s) - closing (real estate) , workforce , notice , feeling , state (computer science) , health care , closure (psychology) , mental health , business , agency (philosophy) , licensure , medicine , political science , law , psychology , psychiatry , sociology , social science , algorithm , computer science , social psychology
Mercy Medical Center plans to lay off 202 employees at its Providence Behavioral Health Hospital in Holyoke, Massachusetts, when it permanently closes all 74 of its inpatient psychiatry beds there at the end of June, MassLive reported May 11. Mercy, itself owned by Trinity Health Of New England, filed a WARN notice under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act with the state Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development May 1. Meanwhile, another state agency — the Department of Public Health's Division of Health Care Facility Licensure and Certification — has yet to rule on Mercy's plan to close the beds following a public hearing April 30 when state regulators heard from advocates, families, employees and state lawmakers opposed to the proposed closure. Mercy said that it's closing the facility because of its inability to recruit and retain psychiatrists to run it, because of two reimbursements paid by insurers for mental health care and because of the age of the facility and the expense of maintaining it. Advocates say those beds are needed now more than ever with people feeling stress from COVID‐19, those in crisis unable to stay safely in an emergency room and the lack of any other pediatric beds for children and teens in the region.