Woodbury hospital not needed, say state officials

Despite sometimes serious problems with mental health care in Minnesota, building a new psychiatric hospital in Woodbury is not in the best interest of the state, health officials told legislators Friday.

Minnesota Department of Health officials said that a controversial proposal for a 144-bed psychiatric facility in Woodbury would add three to four times as many beds as the state needs, would cost the state about $2 million a year in higher medical fees and would add financial strain to other hospitals.

Changes in mental health care already underway, including adding 36 beds at other hospitals, could help alleviate a demand that has sometimes forced people in mental crisis to travel hundreds of miles away from home.

Stories from people who described that experience "clearly indicate that the system is not working well," said Julie Sonier, economist for the Health Department. "But the scale of this project is very large relative to the need that we were able to document," she said.

Officials from Fargo, N.D.-based Prairie St. John's, who are proposing the hospital, said that they were dumbfounded by the department's findings and that they will continue to try to persuade the Legislature to authorize the hospital. And later Friday, the Minnesota House mental health panel sent the bill to approve the hospital to its next committee stop.

According to the Health Department's analysis, "it would remain acceptable for people to wait for days in emergency rooms, only to be transferred around the state for treatment far from home," John Ryan, special projects director for Prairie St. John's, said in a prepared statement.

Prairie St. John's, which runs a psychiatric hospital in Fargo and clinics in Woodbury and Edina, proposed the hospital because it said Minnesota clearly needed more beds and chemical dependency services. The proposed Woodbury hospital would be built a block from Woodwinds Hospital and would include 96 beds in a first phase and 48 more after five years. Half of those 144 would be for children and adolescents.

Because of a 1984 moratorium on hospitals, Prairie St. John's must secure an exemption from the Legislature. The Health Department weighed in because it is required by a 2004 law to provide guidance and analysis to the Legislature when exemptions are proposed.

The Legislature could still give Prairie St. John an exemption and allow the project to go forward.

"But I hope not," said Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, chair of the Health and Human Services Budget Division in the Senate. "I have no quarrel with the findings."

However, Rep. Marsha Swails, DFL-Woodbury, who is sponsoring a bill in the house that would allow the exemption, said "this is a blow. I will present the bill in committee and do what I can to make sure our concerns are heard."

In its report, the Health Department said that some patients from the Twin Cities area do have to travel outside the region more often for psychiatric and chemical dependency hospitalizations than for other types of care. In 2006, some 2,600 Twin Cities residents had to make such journeys. Still, more than 90 percent were treated at local hospitals. The pressure is worse on the Twin Cities hospitals than it is on those elsewhere in the state, the report said. But the recently added beds in the Twin Cities will allow 1,400 people to be treated closer to home.