State Hospital chief to be replaced
| • | Mental patient back in custody |
By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer
For the third time in as many years, the long-troubled Hawai'i State Hospital will have a new boss.
Public health officials plan to replace hospital administrator Barbara Peterson, who has headed the controversial facility in Kane'ohe for seven stormy months and is away on a leave of absence. A new administrator tentatively has been chosen and could be hired within weeks, state Health Director Bruce Anderson said yesterday.
"The actual terms of employment are being negotiated at this point, and I'm not sure how it will work out," Anderson said. "A transition would probably occur within the next few months."
The hospital has suffered a rash of escapes by potentially dangerous patients over the past several months, the latest occurring this week. It is operating under a 10-year-old federal consent decree, the result of a civil rights lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department in 1991.
Peterson could not be reached for comment, but her $88,500 one-year contract expires in November. She had not asked to continue in the job, Anderson said.
Peterson left about a week ago to attend to family matters and was expected to be away for up to a month, he said. In the meantime, the hospital is being overseen by its clinical director, Celia Ona.
Anderson said Peterson had done a good job under difficult circumstances and had ushered in needed changes. But some members of the hospital staff have bitterly criticized her management style as cold and autocratic.
"The employees just feel they haven't had a say, and that it's been a top-down management," said Nora Nomura, field services director for the Hawai'i Government Employees Association. "Our biggest complaint is that management doesn't know what works, they do it anyway, and then they blame the employees. We hope that whatever new administrator comes in will take a different tack."
