SRS official predicts Rainbow will reopen with 50 beds

The state welfare official who oversees the state hospital said the Rainbow Mental Health Facility would resume full operations in about a year. He also predicted it would have restored capacity for 50 patients.

“It’s looking like the renovations will be done in March or April of 2013,” said Gary Haulmark, deputy secretary in charge of disability and behavioral health services at the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services.

When the state-run hospital reopens, he said, it will return to its 50-bed capacity.

SRS closed 16 of the Kansas City hospital’s 50 beds last summer after federal surveyors ruled the facility was understaffed. In November, it closed all but a few of the remaining beds after the State Fire Marshal’s Office cited the facility for several safety violations.

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SRS, in turn, offset the closing by opening a 30-bed unit at Osawatomie State Hospital. The two hospitals are about 50 miles apart.

Haulmark, in a meeting last week with members of the Kansas Mental Health Coalition, said House and Senate budget negotiators had tentatively agreed to spend $1.5 million on the Rainbow renovations.

The Senate included the money in its budget plan, the House did not. But the Rainbow improvements were one of the concessions House bargainers agreed to as the conference committee worked for an accord. The House later backed away from the budget agreement, citing a misunderstanding over a spending provision for public schools. But the deal on Rainbow apparently remained intact. Budget negotiators are scheduled to resume work when legislators return to Topeka later this month.

Though the Legislature had yet to approve the additional Rainbow spending, Haulmark predicted it would.

“After the dust settles, the $1.5 million will be there for the Rainbow renovations and for operating at 50 beds,” he said.

Haulmark said the remodeled facility would be “much nicer” and “more open” than it was before.

“I’m surprised we can get all this work done for $1.5 million,” he said, “but I guess this is the kind of deal you can get when there’s a recession in the construction industry.”

Haulmark said the hospital’s six-bed crisis stabilization unit would remain open during and after the renovations.

Advocates for the mentally ill said they were pleased by Haulmark’s announcements.

“This is what we’ve been aspiring for,” said Rick Cagan, executive director with Kansas Chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We can’t afford to lose any more of our inpatient capacity.”

Rainbow Mental Health Facility is the smallest of the state’s three hospitals for people who are are severely mentally ill and are considered a danger to themselves or others.

The other hospitals, in Osawatomie and Larned, have 176- and 90-bed capacities, respectively.

SRS records show that all three hospitals’ censuses often exceed their licensed capacities.

“From our perspective, it looks as though the Legislature has asked SRS to take the lead in figuring out what we as a state need in terms of capacity,” Cagan said. “All we know now is that we can’t afford to lose any more beds. We don’t know what the overall goal is, we don’t know where we’re going.”

During an accreditation survey earlier this month, Larned State Hospital was cited for being understaffed and for being lax in dispensing patient medications.

Haulmark said SRS and Larned hospital officials were doing all they could to recruit and hire additional staff.

“The workforce issue has been around for a while,” he said. “But, priority-wise, our strategy is ‘all of the above.’ This is at the top of our radar.”