State Pushes St. Vincent Hospital To Reopen Mental Health Beds

WORCESTER, MA — The state Department of Public Health (DPH) wants answers from St. Vincent Hospital about why the hospital has kept beds for mental health patients closed with no clear plan to reopen them.

The hospital closed behavioral health beds in August citing a labor shortage amid the ongoing nurses strike. But with the beds now closed for more than three months, state officials say St. Vincent has to either offer a plan to reopen the beds or go through the process of closing the beds as an "essential service" in Worcester.

"[DPH] has repeatedly requested that the hospital provide a date certain for the inpatient behavioral health beds reopening and the Hospital has failed to provide one," acting DPH Commissioner Margaret Cooke wrote in a letter to hospital executives on Wednesday. "In our most recent call, you clearly stated there is no plan in place to reopen the beds."

The hospital had previously told DPH the beds would reopen once the strike was settled. But by the beginning of October, the hospital told DPH it was moving patients to Leonard Morse Hospital in Natick — a facility that was turned into an all-behavioral health facility in 2020 by Tenet Healthcare, St. Vincent's corporate parent.

Cooke's letter comes after state Rep. David LeBoeuf asked DPH earlier in November to hold hearings about the closure of the behavioral health beds.

“The decision to close behavioral health beds and relocate services out of the region by St. Vincent’s Hospital and their for-profit parent company Tenet was not only reckless, it put the health and welfare of residents in Worcester County in danger," LeBoeuf said in a statement Wednesday. "It has been shown time and time again that the hospital will go out of its way to harm the overall healthcare ecosystem instead of sitting down with the nurses and settling this long overdue dispute."

Cooke's letter says St. Vincent has 10 days to submit a plan for closing the beds, or else face fines between $1,000 and $10,000 per day.

The St. Vincent nurses went on strike in March. The nurses and the hospital reached an agreement to end the strike in August, but have been in a stalemate over a return-to-work plan ever since.