CONCORD — Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital of Lebanon will replace a controversial out-of-state vendor as provider of clinical services at Hampstead Hospital and Residential Treatment Facility.
The Executive Council unanimously endorsed a two-year, $9.5 million contract turning over medical management at Hampstead to Mary Hitchcock, which is owned by Dartmouth Health, when the current contract with Wellpath Recovery Solutions of Nashville, Tennessee, ends next month.
In May 2022, a coalition of groups advocating for the disabled and mentally ill urged the Executive Council to reject the $52 million Wellpath contract because of the company’s history of being sued in other states.
Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver said the switch will bring to Hampstead, which serves young people, the same Dartmouth-hired management model that the state has used for decades at New Hampshire Hospital in Concord for adults with psychiatric conditions and at Glencliff Home for the Elderly.
“When the state purchased Hampstead Hospital in 2022, our intent was to establish a center for excellence serving the children and youth of New Hampshire,” Weaver said.
“Today’s announcement is a significant step toward that goal as we work to shape the care and services at Hampstead to meet the needs of the youth in our state.”
Gov. Chris Sununu said he’s confident this will bring “continuous progress” to services at Hampstead.
Dr. Joanne M. Conroy, Dartmouth Health’s chief executive officer, said, “Partnering with DHHS at Hampstead is a natural progression of this relationship (with the state) and in the best interest of the institution and its patients.”
Under the contract, Dartmouth will provide 11 staff members, costing $4.7 million over the next two years, including a chief medical officer, general medical director, staff psychiatrists, advanced practice registered nurses and a behavioral analyst.
Weaver said the state will be offering full-time state employment to the current 176 staffers providing treatment services at Hampstead.
“We hope they all will agree to stay with us,” Weaver said.
DHHS will present to lawmakers updated plans to use its staff to “operationally support” Hampstead once the Wellpath contract expires, she added.
Last fall, Executive Councilor Janet Stevens sharply criticized Wellpath, charging mismanagement had led to a spike in the number of emergency calls law enforcement had to respond to there.
Weaver said Wednesday the state has worked with community partners to reduce the number of incidents at Hampstead, and those numbers have dropped dramatically in recent weeks.
“The level of engagement and support with emergency services has been a trend in the right direction,” Weaver said.
Over the past three weeks, there was only one incident at Hampstead, Stevens said.
The contract will allow for a child psychiatrist residency at Hampstead to replace a now-closed program which had been based at New Hampshire Hospital.
“We are really excited about growing that program,” Weaver said.Executive Councilor Joe Kenney, R-Wakefield, said Wellpath had a good treatment plan, but it failed to take steps to properly secure the complex.
“This is a severely challenging population of youths sent there, and Wellpath never seemed to do enough to keep things under control,” Kenney said.
Councilor Cinde Warmington, D-Concord, said Wellpath failed to fulfill the contract terms to expand the number of youths served there.
The contract called for Wellpath to open 55 beds by October 2022 and 65 beds by June 2023. Hampstead has a capacity of 74 beds.
The current census is 37, though only one youth is on a waiting list for a bed, Weaver said. “It’s not like we have 35 kids waiting to be served,” she said.
The contract with Dartmouth Health along with the current one has performance metrics for the vendor to meet goals for occupancy, Weaver said.
The New Hampshire branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which had opposed the Wellpath contract, endorsed the switch to Dartmouth.
“We are heartened that the state has chosen to use this proven model of public-private partnership as the foundation for care at Hampstead Hospital,” said NAMI-NH Executive Director Susan Stearns.
Back in the spring of 2022, Attorney General John Formella said his office analyzed Wellpath’s track record and concluded it was competent to do the work.
Formella said his agency’s analysis found that “Wellpath does not pose any unusually high risk of litigation or substantial risk to the future children and young adult patients at Hampstead Hospital.”
The Executive Council approved the Wellpath contract unanimously.
