CHELSEA, Mich. (WXYZ-TV) — Trinity Health’s Chelsea Hospital is closing its in-patient Adult Behavioral Health Unit in December, meaning its 30 available beds will need to move elsewhere or will be eliminated.
Chelsea Hospital’s president, Ben Miles, said most of the beds will be reallocated to other facilities.
14 beds will move to other Trinity Health facilities, 12 of which will go to Trinity Health Ann Arbor. Eight beds will move to another facility in southeast Michigan, leaving 8 beds unaccounted for.
“It’s a loss to our community,” said Cynthia Every, who spent years working in homeless outreach in Washtenaw County. During her work she became pretty familiar with the unit, and was happy when her clients were placed there for in-patient care.
Tucked away in a wooded area, its calm setting often provided some peace during a traumatic time, she said.
“People that were living outside struggled less if they needed a hospitalization to be at Chelsea because of the environment. And a lot of it was staff too. People just felt heard,” Every told Action News.
It’s a smaller setting that often appeared less daunting for people experiencing a psychiatric emergency.
“Just to have an alternative is always good as well. And we’re losing that,” she said.
According to Miles, several factors went into the decision to close the unit, including staffing challenges.
“We’re operating somewhere plus or minus around 50 percent occupancy at the unit in Chelsea,” he said. “I think the need is so pervasive that we could probably fill our unit and several other units,” he continued, noting that staffing challenges are being felt by health systems around the country.
“The workforce challenges that we’re feeling are particularly acute in mental health services,” he said.
Miles doesn’t anticipate this consolidation leading to job cuts. He said this move will allow the hospital to better utilize the resources it has on hand by gradually ramping up out-patient services, which more patients tend to rely on.
“We know today it takes far too long to get in to see a counselor or a provide in out-patient mental health. And unfortunately because some patients aren’t gaining timely access, they’re kind of spiraling to a point where they need to go to the emergency room or they may need hospitalization,” he said.
Trinity Health is looking to create a transition care clinic, which Miles said will help, indirectly, address the bed shortage in western Washtenaw County.
“What that is going to do is to provide same day, next day access to patients. And we’ll be touching thousands of patients. And that’s not to minimize the hundreds that are on the in-patient side, but by getting further upstream we believe that we’re going to be able to diminish the need for in-patient hospitalization.”
The changes at Chelsea Hospital are coming at a time when statewide, Michigan is short on psychiatric beds for both adults and adolescence. According to MDHHS the state is currently short 27 beds for adults.
As Dr. Oliver Cameron explained, this problem has been ongoing for years in our state.
“It started in the 1950s,” he said.
Cameron, who is retired faculty from U of M’s Psychiatric Department and also chairs the legislative committee for the Michigan Psychiatric Society, said around that time is when newer medications helped change the state’s approach to psychiatric care; over the years it allowed patients to receive care during shorter hospital stays or even in community settings or at home, compared to extended stays at large psychiatric hospitals. Those changes led to the closure of many in-patient beds in Michigan.
“I think it’s pretty clear that people now appreciate that the pendulum went a little too far,” he said.
Cameron is also a board member with NAMI(National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Washtenaw County. Like Every, he was saddened to learn of the closure at Chelsea Hospital.
“I think what’s most important if that you don’t go from 30 beds to 12 or 30 beds to 15. But somehow with reapportionment, somehow all 30 of those beds stay open somewhere,” he said.
It’s something Miles is optimistic can happen, but a handful of beds are still unaccounted for and could be eliminated.
Every has seen firsthand how difficult it can be for people in a mental health emergency to seek the care they need. Any barrier at all she said, can be critical. She’s worried this closure will be one more barrier.
“I’m concerned about longer waits at psychiatric ER,” she said.
Admission to the unit will gradually slow in November before the consolidation officially happens in December.
