Tinley mental health center closing plan needs ... - Health and Fitness

Just five weeks before the scheduled closing of the Tinley Park Mental Health Center, service providers and advocates say the transition plan comes with too little funding to safely serve residents of the south suburbs.

Gov. Pat Quinn announced the closing this year as part of a ?rebalancing plan? that will transition those with mental illnesses and developmental disabilities out of institutions and into community-based settings. The center has also been lumped into the governor?s cost-cutting plan to close and consolidate state facilities.

Despite a legislative panel?s recommendation to keep the center open, Quinn has pushed forward with the plan.

Department of Human Services officials last week reviewed the closing plan with the providers that will replace services offered by the center. Lorrie Rickman Jones, director of the department?s Division of Mental Health, said DHS is ready to shut down the 54-year-old facility by July 1, despite recent legislative attempts to keep it open for another six months to allow for more planning.

?We?re ready to go,? she said. ?The contracts are on the street and the money will be on the street very shortly.?

DHS accepted proposals from 10 hospitals, seven community health providers and four substance-abuse service providers for replacement services once the center closes, she said, but contract negotiations are ongoing.

Mental health advocates and lawmakers alike have criticized DHS for having too few details settled for serving residents when Tinley?s center closes. With the last date for patient admission set for June 15, stakeholders say they are happy for more details but still have concerns. Chief among them is that the plan doesn?t offer enough funding for the services that hospitals and community providers are taking on.

?Everyone shares the concerns around sustainability and whether there?s enough funds to take care of the transition,? said Frank Anselmo, CEO of Community Behavioral Healthcare Association of Illinois.

Jones said DHS will spend about $10 million on the plan, which is estimated to serve 1,400 clients a year through inpatient, outpatient and substance-abuse services. With an operating budget of $20.3 million in fiscal year 2011, the facility served 1,900 patients.

Anselmo said that doesn?t account for others who never got treatment because of a shortage of psychiatric beds for the uninsured in the Chicago area.

DHS said the new plan is designed to redirect some patients out of hospital beds and into substance-abuse treatment or outpatient care programs.

?Our studies estimate that we will see the need for admissions decrease by about 45 percent,? DHS spokeswoman Januari Smith Trader said in an email.

Joseph Troiani, director of behavioral health programs for the Will County Health Department, said about half the patients sent to the Tinley Park center through his programs have a substance-abuse problem.

Troiani said the new system of assessing patients is a plus. Though he described the overall plan as ?workable,? he added that it would benefit from additional resources.

Jackie Haas, president and CEO of The Helen Wheeler Center, a mental health provider in Kankakee, said she has yet to sign a contract with DHS and is moving forward cautiously because of funding concerns.

Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey is still reviewing a contract to provide psychiatric beds for DHS, said Jeff Bergren, director of behavioral health. The hospital referred 220 patients to Tinley Park last year, he said, but the state contract would cover only 60 percent of those patients.

?It would seem to say we are not going to have sufficient funding to take care of these patients throughout the year,? he said. ?I think DHS has actually done a pretty good job of putting together a system of care with the available resources they have, but I don?t think the available resources are sufficient.?

arueff@tribune.com

Article source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-tinley-park-mental-health-20120527,0,7272300.story

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