St. Anthony Central Hospital, which is preparing to build a new $440 million facility, may close its psychiatric unit, and some employees say they’ve been told they face layoffs in 90 days.
Bev Lilly, spokeswoman for the nonprofit Catholic hospital at 4231 W. 16th Ave., said administrators are considering closing the 29-bed psychiatric unit and a transitional-care unit, but a final decision hasn’t been made.
“It’s not a done deal by any means,” she said. Lilly said no people have been laid off. She said that because management has been open with employees about the moves it is considering, it is likely that rumors have begun to spread in the hospital.
However, two longtime nurses in the psychiatric unit said Thursday they had been told that their jobs will be gone in 90 days.
Mary Hemker, a registered nurse who said she has worked in the unit for 17 years, said her supervisor told her she will be laid off. Joanne Cordova, who has worked at St. Anthony for five years, said she also was told she was losing her job.
“It’s the patients who are going to suffer,” Cordova said. “There are not that many facilities that are nonprofit that will take indigent patients.”
St. Anthony Central, which is part of the nonprofit Centura chain, provides millions of dollars in charity care for the indigent and uninsured each year, according to its administrators.
There are 21 Colorado hospitals with facilities and staff to treat the mentally ill, according to the Mental Health Association of Colorado.
The loss of any psychiatric beds will aggravate an already bad situation, said Chris Habgood, public policy director for the Mental Health Association of Colorado.
“Hospitals have admitted that when they divert – when they do not have beds available – what happens is that those people are then sent to jails and to homeless shelters,” Habgood said.
The Mental Health Association found that admissions to emergency rooms for mental- health and substance-abuse issues grew 83 percent between 1999 and 2003.
Cordova and Hemker said St. Anthony’s psychiatric unit is often full, and many of the patients have no insurance and no means to pay their bills.
“We’re usually full,” Hemker said. “And what we do is take care of the indigent. If we close, there’s going to be a crisis out there, because usually what happens is, if we are full, there is no place else for them to go. They’ll go to jail or just be put back out on the street.”
Last week, Catholic Health Initiatives, which operates St. Anthony, approved funding for a new 900,000-square-foot, 330-bed hospital.
The approval paves the way for St. Anthony to move from its aging building in the neighborhood off West Colfax Avenue to a 30-acre site in Lakewood near the Federal Center.
Staff writer Karen Augé can be reached at 303-820-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com.
