Hawaii's $160 million forensic hospital building sits empty nearly a year after completion
Hawaii News Now reported that construction of the 144-bed forensic facility at the Hawaii State Hospital in Kaneohe was announced complete in May 2021, with officials then aiming to open it that summer. By February 2022 the building was still empty. Administrator Run Heidelberg listed problems found in a walk-through, including sloping showers that leaked, door fixtures that posed a risk for suicidal patients, parts on backorder, unwritten safety policies and training on new technology.
The state said the soonest patients could move in was a couple of months away and that they would mostly be existing patients rather than people from the community. A community psychiatrist told the station the shortage of psychiatric beds left many people floundering.
Because the hospital serves mostly court-committed patients, the delay left forensic capacity unchanged through the period the new building was meant to relieve.
Source: Months after its completion, state’s $160M psychiatric facility sits empty — Hawaii News Now, by Allyson Blair
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