Senate backs study of new Whiting Forensic Hospital
HARTFORD — The state Senate on Friday unanimously approved legislation that would start the study the construction of a new facility at the campus of the troubled Connecticut Valley and Whiting Forensic hospitals.
During a brief debate, lawmakers said the amended legislation on the Middletown complex focuses on reducing the risk to patients as well as the surrounding community. The 35-0 vote sends the bill to the House of Representatives.
“We should be the shining pillar of forensic and mental health in the country,” said Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, a top Republican on the legislative Public Health Committee who in the last two years has been involved in a volunteer task force of experts reviewing the problems there including staff, morale and patient care. She admitted that the bill was a “watered-down” version of the task force's recommendations.
“These are intentional and incremental steps to create something, again, that Connecticut can be proud of,” Somers said, criticizing the legislative-compromise process in plans to allocate $350,000 to turn Whiting into a state hospital under the Department of Public Health rather than the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services were rejected.
“Perhaps if we had that years ago, we wouldn't have experienced what we had as far as scandal and abuse,” Somers said. “It was very clear from my multiple visits along with the task force it is not suitable to be housing individuals with mental health issues and those who have been found not guilty for reasons of insanity. Connecticut can absolutely do better and this building is not suitable.”
Plans for a new facility, which is run by Yale University faculty, are due by January 2024, under the legislation. A new hospital board, to start in October, would include a variety of lawyers, psychiatrists, victims advocates and would further study staffing issues and complaints from both staff and patients.
Somers admitted that there is a balancing act between the needs of patients to occasionally leave the facility and enter the community, and the Middletown area's lingering fear. In July 1989, 9-year-old Jessica Short was stabbed to death by an escapee. Thirty employees have been fired and several were convicted of crimes of abuse against patients.
The Psychiatric Review Board, which approves the movement of patients based on risk, would remain in place, but it's considerations would expand. “Risk is the number-one priority, but also taking into consideration a patient's wellbeing,” Somers said.
“This will absolutely help change the stain that we have had here on us in the state of Connecticut for the way that we treat those who are critically mentally ill or have been put into this facility because they have been found not guilty because of insanity,” Somers said.