Executive Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, left, has charged the company managing Hampstead Hospital has failed to de-escalate juveniles with serious mental health problems, leading to violent incidents over the past year. Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, right, said staffing shortages could be making the problem worse.
CONCORD — An executive councilor said it’s “absolutely inappropriate” that violent disturbances at the Hampstead Hospital Residential Treatment Facility have outstripped local and state law enforcement manpower.
Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, charged that Wellpath Recovery Solutions, the Tennessee-based for-profit company staffing the complex, is not meeting the commitments it made to the state in order to win a no-bid, $52 million contract in May 2022.
“They are supposed to provide 24/7 de-escalation of some our most vulnerable youths in this state and they just aren’t getting it done,” Stevens said during an interview.
“They are putting our first responders at risk by making them do jobs they are not equipped or trained to do.”
Stevens gave the Union Leader an event log for state and police calls to the state-owned hospital for at-risk juveniles with mental health problems.
Executive Councilor Janet Stevens, R-Rye, left, has charged the company managing Hampstead Hospital has failed to de-escalate juveniles with serious mental health problems, leading to violent incidents over the past year. Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, right, said staffing shortages could be making the problem worse.
Since the state paid $13 million and officially took over the hospital in June 2022, there have been 61 local police calls and 73 incidents that prompted state police responses.
The incidents included three suicide attempts, five sexual assault incidents and nine other events described as patients being “unruly” or the complex facing a “riot,” according to the log.
With only a five-person police force, the town of Hampstead can’t afford to have a single officer injured at the facility, Stevens said.
“This is absolutely inappropriate, it’s unsustainable and we can’t be putting our first responders over and over in harm’s way like this,” Stevens said.
According to the log, some examples of incidents included a minor claiming to be sexually assaulted by an older patient, a former patient threatening to “shoot up the hospital,” a staff member kicked in the head “five to seven times” and a patient escaping for 30 minutes after punching and giving a male staffer a concussion.
Wellpoint took over staffing at Hampstead in October 2022, according to the two-year contract the council approved.
Teresa Koeberlein, a spokesperson for Wellpoint, said progress has been made in reducing these incidents.
“The acuity level of the patients we treat is often very high. They need an inpatient or a residential level of care in order to keep them safe and provide the intensive treatment often needed with this level of psychiatric illness. This is not unique to New Hampshire. There are occasions when any psychiatric facility requires the assistance of first responders,” Koeberlein said in a statement.
“We all acknowledge several incidents requiring law enforcement assistance occurred when we first opened the new PRTF (psychiatric residential treatment facility) unit, resulting in some modifications to both the physical facility and internal policies. Since September 1, there have been 2 onsite incidents requiring the assistance of law enforcement. We value our state and local first responders for the professional skills they bring to sometimes challenging situations.”
Commissioner’s response
Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver said her management team is determined to calm things down at the Hampstead complex.
She has named different state leadership to work at the hospital and said she has asked Wellpath to do the same.
“We have been actively engaged with the town, with state police, with representatives of the town as well as the vendor,” Weaver said.
“It is an acute psychiatric facility, and we are in there managing, sleeves rolled up, working hard to get on top of this matter.”
Weaver said the number of incidents dropped dramatically in the past two weeks.
State officials said the agency has a full team of “safety ambassadors” working at the hospital that practice de-escalation and prevent having to contact law enforcement for help about 50 times a month.
Law enforcement only get called in to deal with a “true emergency,” they said.
The current contract ends next spring. Weaver said the council will get to vote on a new agreement, perhaps with a different vendor, by next July.
“That’s eight months away. we can’t go on this way,” Stevens responded.
Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, said the hospital has been unable to increase the number of youths served at Hampstead due to a staffing shortage.
Gov. Chris Sununu kept the topic limited in scope at the council table because the contract was not on the agenda.
Contract approval
Last year, the council approved the contract for Wellpath despite allegations of poor quality of care and abuse at facilities it operates in other states.
Questions about a litany of lawsuits brought against the company in other states delayed the council’s decision.
The National Alliance for Mental Illness, along with leaders of the Disability Rights Center-NH, New Futures and New Hampshire Legal Assistance, all urged the council to consider other contractors or create tighter regulations over the contract.
Attorney General John Formella issued a six-page review that found the previous allegations against the company did not “raise red flags,” noting providers like Wellpath were often the target of lawsuits.
“The media reports and the concerns regarding Wellpath sound troubling, but a deeper analysis of more analogous treatment milieus indicates that Wellpath does not pose any unusually high risk of litigation or substantial risk to the future children and young adult patients at Hampstead Hospital,” Formella wrote.
