WMCHealth, the largest hospital system in the Hudson Valley, routinely discharged vulnerable mental health patients without adequate evaluation or stabilization measures and improperly kept inpatient psychiatric beds closed for years despite a growing need for those services, an investigation by the state attorney general’s office found.
The lapses in patient care occurred at three hospitals, directly contributed to at least one patient’s death and led to a settlement that commits WMCHealth to expanding access to inpatient psychiatric care and overhauling how it treats patients in acute mental health crisis.
“For too long, vulnerable New Yorkers experiencing mental health or substance use crises have been met with inadequate care when they went to an emergency room for help,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “Mental health care is medical care, and mental health crises must be treated as the emergencies they are. This settlement should serve as a patient care model for hospitals in every corner of our great state.”…