BRISTOL — After a $5 million con-struction project, the former I.T. center at Bristol Hospital has been transformed into a 15-bed center for patients 65 and over with acute psychiatric or behavioral disorders.
The hospital plans to begin admitting patients early in March after getting its final state permits, but gathered physi-cians, nurses and other staff together on Tuesday for a ribbon cutting.
“We expect to care for a great diversity of clinical needs on this unit, from a depressed older adult who may be griev-ing the loss of a spouse to a patient with cognitive impairment who may be too agitated to be safely cared for at home,” Dr. Genevieve Henry, medical director of the unit, told the crowd.
Henry emphasized that the operation is designed for short-term stays, with the ultimate goal of returning patients to where they live. The facility will serve people coming from assisted living cen-ters, nursing homes or private homes.
The hospital decided two years ago to create the unit after a community assess-ment indicated the need for more special-ized care, particularly in the psychiatric field, for the growing elderly population.
The unit on Floor F will be locked and is designed with the safety features of a modern psychiatric facility. Furniture, doors and bathrooms are designed to minimize the risk of patients hurting themselves or others.
Henry, whose training is as a geriatric psychiatrist, said patients might have dementia or other long-term disorders with escalating behavioral components, such as extreme anxiety, aggressiveness or inappropriate sexual behavior. Others will have no history of psychiatric treatment, but might develop severe depression or anxiety late in life that requires special-ized treatment.
“For some, this will be a first-time experience in a psychiatric hospital,” she said. “Most people will go back to their long-term care [after treatment].”
Hospital President Kurt Barwis predic-ted the new facility will be a major help to families that are trying to care for elderly relatives, and particularly for senior citi-zens whose spouses require inpatient service for many days or even weeks. Traveling to similar units elsewhere in the state can be daunting, Barwis said.
“This really defines the importance of having services local,” Barwis said. “All the providers know there are absolutely pa-tients who aren’t going to navigate into the city of Hartford or New Haven or some more complicated places.
“They’re going to choose not to have a service — and the outcomes, the quality of life are not going to be there for them,” he said. “Our mission is to create those core services in our community.”