Our country has a mental health crisis and New Hampshire, like other states, has fallen short. As legislators, one of our most important jobs is to protect New Hampshire’s most vulnerable citizens, which is why we took charge to address this crisis.
We quickly identified that there was a serious need for increased emergency mental health care services. Emergency room wait times were steadily increasing, largely due to the demand brought on by mental health patients seeking specialized care, which most ERs are not structured to provide. Patients in need of mental health treatment were and still are waiting days in the emergency room for mental health services.
We worked to increase funding in the state budget to begin to address these needs. But to help eliminate long waiting times and help better direct appropriate care, I sponsored legislation last year to fully fund the opening of a 10-bed crisis unit at the New Hampshire State Hospital, as soon as possible. This bill was specifically designed to help reduce the number of patients seeking emergency mental health care that end up in emergency rooms across the state.
Because of the lack of available treatment and the seriousness of this crisis, I assumed this would be a top priority for the governor. Surprisingly enough, the Department of Health and Human Services has been unable to staff these critical positions in conjunction with a serious lack of leadership and mismanagement coming from the corner office, and these emergency mental health beds remain unfilled.
These critical mental health resources continue to sit idle despite the Legislature’s work to fully fund staffing and opening of the crisis unit, which should have happened almost a year ago.
We fully expect the governor to use the power of her office to direct the Department of Health and Human Services to get the crisis beds open.
The result is that hospital emergency rooms continue to be filled with patients in need of specialized mental health treatment who still have no other option in critical moments. Not opening this unit has become needlessly burdensome for our local hospitals, especially amidst a substance abuse crisis, and unfair to the mental health patients who are not getting the care they need.
More recently, the Department of Health and Human Services had been unable to fill nursing positions in the new unit, claiming the state’s pay was lower than other local private hospitals.
With careful attention and aggressive management from the governor, this issue could have been addressed in a timely manner through the budget process. Instead, this issue was brought to the Legislature several months later, where the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee – one of the most powerful committees in the Legislature designated with these issues – approved a pay increase for nurses and medical professionals at the New Hampshire hospital in order to be more competitive.
This Legislature has done everything in its power to ensure the 10 beds for mental health patients in crisis are made available so that these individuals can begin to receive the care they need beyond the emergency room. Yet here we are, almost a year after the unit was completed; it sits empty while the demand grows for these critical mental health care services.
I am tired of excuses. The Legislature has acted; now it is time for the governor to do her job and do whatever it takes to get this unit open.
(Sen. David Boutin, a Hooksett Republican, represents District 16 and chairs the Senate Ways and Means Committee. He is also a member of the Executive Departments and Administration and Capital Budget committees.)