DATE: Wednesday, June 18, 1997              TAG: 9706180527

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LOUIS HANSEN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   52 lines

OBICI REDUCES PSYCHIATRIC CARE HOSPITAL DIRECTORS VOTE TO CUT SERVICE BY ABOUT HALF RATHER THAN DISCONTINUE IT.

In a compromise that preserves some inpatient mental health care, Obici Hospital's directors voted to cut the service by about half instead of accepting an administration recommendation to discontinue it.

Inpatient beds for psychiatric care will drop from 20 to 8 to 10, hospital spokeswoman Susan Stone said Tuesday. The changes were approved Monday night at a board of directors' meeting.

Some of the 30 full-time and part-time employees will lose their jobs, Stone said, but the hospital will try to find positions for them within Obici's health systems network.

The changes will occur during the next several months, she added.

The department ``will continue to meet the needs of the community,'' she said. ``It's the very same (service) that we've been providing for the last eight years.''

The department treats 400 patients a year, about 75 percent of them on Medicaid.

Hospital administrators estimated that the department lost $250,000 last year because the unit never reached its capacity of filling all 20 beds.

Obici board member Jack W. Nurney said the hospital was feeling pressure from managed care companies to deliver more efficient health care.

The choice to revamp the psychiatric wing ``wasn't a difficult decision,'' he said.

A proposal in May by the hospital administration would have eliminated care for involuntarily committed patients and much of its in-patient care. Under the administration proposal, the hospital would have continued to provided adult psychiatric services on an outpatient basis.

That proposal was criticized by mental health administrators, law enforcement agents and medical professionals. They feared that the treatment of mentally ill patients would suffer if they were separated from their families and sent to other hospitals in Hampton Roads or elsewhere.

A committee of doctors urged the hospital to scale back but to preserve inpatient psychiatric services.

The board decided to adopt the committee's recomendations, Stone said.

The department will remain staffed with three psychiatrists, but will share some support services - such as a social worker and occupational and recreational therapists - that it formerly provided full time.

Dr. Richard Kaye, director of the psychiatric department since 1992, said he was cautious about Monday's decision by the board. He said the wing needs to preserve at least four secured private rooms to care for acutely ill patients.

``Nobody wants the department to be a drag on the hospital,'' he said. ``We can make it more efficient.''

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