A recently announced proposal to shift management and staffing of a state-owned psychiatric hospital for minors to Dartmouth Health hit a roadblock Wednesday.
Members of the Executive Council voted unanimously to delay the leasing of Hampstead Hospital to the New Hampshire-based health care provider, citing concerns about oversight of the facility and the fate of state employees currently caring for some of the state’s most vulnerable children.
“We have not gone through the process we should go through to make sure that we are looking at all angles of this, including that we are treating our state employees fairly,” Councilor Cinde Warmington said.
Councilors Joseph Kenney and Janet Stevens also expressed concerns about the contract with Dartmouth Health, which could come back up for a vote at the council’s meeting later this month.
Under the proposed deal, Dartmouth Health would pay approximately $1 million annually to lease the building and equipment at Hampstead Hospital. It would also take over management of the facility from the state for a period of seven years, while collecting revenue from patients’ insurance providers.
The state purchased Hampstead Hospital in 2022 for $13 million from its previous private owner. Since then, the hospital has shifted through a variety of different management models involving outside contractors, but it has yet to achieve its goal of increasing the number of patients it treats.
The state has long struggled to meet the mental health needs of residents, leading to extended wait times in emergency rooms for both adults and minors. The purchase of Hampstead Hospital was described as an initiative that could bolster the system's capacity for kids in acute need of treatment.
While the facility is licensed to care for 71 patients, only 33 beds are now in use, due to staffing constraints, according to Stevens. That’s caused long wait times for patients in acute need of care.
“We know that we cannot have kids waiting in emergency departments. We know that we need to get critical care both on the residential and inpatient level,” said Morissa Henn, deputy commissioner for the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services. “We are confident that this is the model way to do that.”
Henn noted that earlier this year, Dartmouth Health was brought on to lead the clinical care of Hampstead’s patients, while state employees continue to manage the facility and provide social work and other services for kids and their families. Dartmouth Health also manages clinical care for adult psychiatric patients at New Hampshire Hospital in Concord through a separate contract with the state.
Gov. Chris Sununu urged the councilors to support the contract Wednesday, saying that Dartmouth Health is in a better position to attract and recruit medical staff to work at the facility.
“Are we going to get a better result for kids under this contract, in this model, than we would otherwise?” he asked. “Unquestionably.”
He said the proposal would save the state about $20 million annually.
Stevens expressed concerns about the job security of clinical staff at the facility, who have had to endure multiple changes in leadership in recent years, as well as changes to their own insurance and retirement plans.
Henn said that Dartmouth Health has pledged to hire every clinical staff member at Hampstead, though the fate of approximately 20 employees in leadership positions isn’t clear.
“Our commitment is that every employee has a great job at the end of the day, and we hate to keep them from that, from that uncertainty,” said Henn.
