By Mark Fischenich
Free Press Staff Writer
—
The long-delayed opening of a forensic nursing home in St. Peter for aging convicts and sex offenders will happen in October, state lawmakers were told Thursday.
The $8.8 million facility was approved by the Minnesota Legislature in April 2005, and in 2006 the Department of Human Services projected it would be completed by the fall of the following year. Nearly three years after that anticipated completion date, the facility remains empty after several building code violations were discovered.
State Rep. Terry Morrow, DFL-St. Peter, was surprised to hear the facility remained shuttered this summer, particularly since DHS officials had held a ribbon-cutting and conducted public tours of the facility on Nov. 19. It wasn’t until April 29 that health and fire inspections were done and identified multiple flaws, including a hallway serving the building’s north wing that was too narrow to meet fire codes and an automated door-lock system that locked the facility’s doors when fire alarms went off.
An initial group of 15 patients, classified as mentally ill and dangerous, are being housed in an existing facility at the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center while the issues with forensic nursing home are being addressed. The facility will ultimately hold nearly 50 people ranging from convicts on medical leave from Minnesota prisons to sexual psychopathic personalities committed by the court system.
Morrow requested that Rep. Paul Thissen, chairman of the House Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee, schedule a hearing on the matter, and that occurred on Thursday. While some answers were provided by DHS and the Department of Administration, which oversaw the construction, Morrow said key questions remain.
“They need to answer the ultimate question to the taxpayers: How much is this going to cost and how are they going to keep it from happening again?” Morrow said.
Lawmakers were assured that the cost of fixing the hallway and some — but not all — of the other problems would be covered by either the designer of the building or the contractor, Thissen said. State taxpayers will be likely be responsible for covering those repairs needed because state officials wrote the building specifications in ways that didn’t meet the code, according to Thissen.
Sen. Kathy Sheran, a Mankato Democrat whose district includes the Regional Treatment Center, said the costs to taxpayers go beyond any required repairs. Tax dollars have been spent to heat and cool the empty building, for instance, and the state would have been reimbursed by Medicare for some of the patients’ care if they’d been housed in the completed and licensed nursing home, she said.
Sheran was also chagrined that a Department of Administration official pointed out that the project came in under budget, so additional costs might be covered by the original budgeted amount.
“That’s money we could have saved,” Sheran said of the low construction bids. “... We need that money for other important programs in the Department of Human Services.”
Sheran, Morrow and Thissen all said they were frustrated by the lack of a good explanation for why nearly two dozen health department citations and 14 fire code violations weren’t identified until late April — nine months after the contractor had completed construction and five months after a ribbon-cutting had been held.
It’s clear various state agencies weren’t communicating well, but Morrow said the problem seems to go beyond that. He wonders how mattresses could be ordered without first checking to make sure they met fire codes (they didn’t).
“Shouldn’t DHS know whether mattresses comply or not before they order them, that curtains comply before they install them?” Morrow asked. “... Why didn’t you check first?”
The purchase of the lock system is also baffling, he said.
“You and I would have to think, ‘Wait, the doors are locking when the fire alarm system goes off? We shouldn’t be ordering this system?’” Morrow said. “A grade-school kid would know that you can’t have doors lock and remain locked when the fire alarm goes off.”
He concedes that there are special complications when designing and equipping a building that must meet the needs of elderly and ill medical patients who also might be dangerous criminals.
“We know it’s a complex situation,” Morrow said of the challenges facing state officials. “It’s also their job.”
Morrow and Sheran said they and the committee will continue pressing for details on the cost of fixing each of the problems, which state officials were responsible for the mistakes, and any recommended changes in policies or regulations that will prevent a similar occurrence in the future.
“It’s a tragedy, and it’s one that really requires we examine what happened and who’s responsible,” Sheran said.
