“From the get-go, the Hawaii State Hospital administration just didn’t plan adequately for how this new building would be staffed and opened,” Perreira said. Perreira said that Run Heidelberg, the administrator at the Hawaii State Hospital, had wrongly viewed the building more as a hospital with elevated security. “If you started from that premise, then you would realize policies and procedures needed to be developed that addressed the security for both the patients and the staff.” “It is truly going to be a correctional facility for individuals who have mental illness,” said HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira. Rather than a new hospital designed to treat mental illness, the Hawaii Government Employees Association says the state has essentially built a prison, and it’s taken time for state health officials to fully recognize that. The union representing many of the staff says a fundamental dispute over the vision for the facility has caused months of delays. The new facility took years to develop, but five months after state officials opened the building to media tours, it remains empty as DOH continues to develop policies to govern its operations and struggles to fill staff positions.Ī state health official declined to speculate on when it would start accepting patients. The prison-like atmosphere is tempered by outdoor areas where patients can relax, athletic courts, a game room and an open dining room - all amid a stunning landscape that provides expansive views of Kaneohe and Kailua bays. The gleaming, 144-bed building in Kaneohe is equipped with state-of-the-art security along with hundreds of digital cameras, clear lines of sight, elevators that separate staff and potentially dangerous patients, and padded rooms where unstable patients can be constrained or confined to prevent self-injury.
In May, the state Department of Health unveiled a long-awaited $160 million psychiatric facility at the Hawaii State Hospital to help improve safety and alleviate overcrowding.
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