The first steps for Fairfax Hospital’s proposed lease of space from Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett has occured this last week, with the first hearing on the issue. Fairfax mission is “This to provide the highest quality of patient care in response to the behavioral health care needs of our community, by focusing on the experience of our patients and families while remaining accountable to our stakeholders” and this expansion in Snohomish County will go a long way in helping an underserved population, and taking stress off of ERs.
LaurieAnn Sigler, of Marysville, said she has been hospitalized at Fairfax in Kirkland 22 times in 13 years.
“We desperately need more psychiatric beds in Snohomish County,” she said. “There are many people who need this service and are unable to get into a psychiatric bed because none are available. That’s where the danger lies.”
Most of the treatment options are located outside Snohomish County, which can make it difficult for friends and family to visit and tough for the patient to get care from his or her psychiatrist, he said.Ken Stone, a vice president at Providence’s Everett hospital, said that 65 percent of people in Snohomish County who need inpatient hospital psychiatric care have to leave the county to get care. Psychiatric patients arriving at the hospital’s emergency department have to wait an average of eight hours, sometimes as long as 24 hours, to be transferred to a hospital that provides psychiatric services, he said.
If there’s no place to transfer the patient, Providence keeps them in its emergency department or admits the patient to observation units until they can be transferred, Stone said. “On a typical day, we have four voluntary and four involuntary inpatient mental health patients under close observation,” Stone said. Staff often have to be assigned to sit and monitor the patients, requiring about 1,500 hours of staff time in the past month, Stone said.
Approval of Fairfax’s plans for an inpatient psychiatric unit “will allow residents to obtain quality psychiatric services close to home,” he said.
Greg Long, deputy director of the North Sound Mental Health Administration, which helps pay for mental health services for the uninsured, said that he supported efforts to bring more inpatient mental health beds to the area, but noted there were no plans to have units for children or geriatric patients. He also said he thought the state agency should carefully consider if all 105 proposed psychiatric beds are needed.