Four Bay State psychiatric facilities owned by Arbour Health System were found to have “significant patient care and life safety violations” and may be forced to stop accepting new patients, officials said yesterday.
The safety violations at Pembroke Hospital, Westwood Lodge, Arbour Hospital in Jamaica Plain and The Quincy Center in Quincy were discovered during a series of surprise inspections conducted by inspectors from the state’s Department of Mental Health, DMH spokeswoman Michelle Hillman told the Herald.
“DMH summoned senior Arbour officials to a meeting this week and ordered a corrective action plan (to) address deficiencies at each facility,” Hillman said in a statement. “If the plan does not meet the urgent patient care and life safety violations, DMH is prepared to take any licensing action necessary to protect patient safety, including the closure of admissions.”
DMH is currently reviewing corrective action plans that Arbour submitted on Thursday for all four facilities and soon will rule whether “they adequately address deficiencies,” an agency official said.
Unannounced visits last week “indicated signs of some improvements in all four facilities,” the official said, including the repair and cleaning of areas identified in need of improvement, the repair and repainting of an adolescent seclusion room and evidence of air quality testing.
