Mental hospital names new director
By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer
Hawai'i State Hospital, a target of scrutiny because of recent patient escapes and a troubled legal battle over patient care, has a new administrator for the third time in as many years.
Paul Guggenheim, executive director of an Ohio private mental-health care provider, will take over as the next administrator at the Kane'ohe hospital for the state's mentally ill.
Guggenheim, 54, of the Cincinnati suburb of Loveland, is a former colleague of Barbara Peterson, the administrator he will replace.
She held the job for seven months before taking a leave of absence from her $88,500 one-year contract, which expires in November. Peterson came to Hawai'i from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, where she was a member of a monitoring team that reviewed mental health services in state prisons.
Guggenheim, head of Cincinnati's Core Behavioral Health Centers, has more than 20 years of experience running three psychiatric hospitals in Ohio — Woodside Hospital in Youngstown, The Dartmouth Hospital in Dayton, and Rollman Psychiatric Institute in Cincinnati.
The changing of the guard signals a new era for the Hawai'i State Hospital, which serves 160 patients and has a staff of 600, state health director Bruce Anderson said.
"We need to focus more attention on treatment planning and the implementation of treatment plans so patients, ultimately, can be released from the hospital," Anderson said.
Hawai'i State Hospital has come under scrutiny in recent months because a number of potentially dangerous patients have run away from the dorm-like campus overlooking Kane'ohe Bay. Just up the road from Windward Community College, the facility also houses those legally defined as the state's criminally insane.
Last year 16 patients escaped. This year, seven have run away, although those in charge stress that it is not a prison.
But the escapes have not been the hospital's biggest problem. The primary source of criticism has been its failure to comply fully with a court order stemming from a 1991 lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice over quality of care.
Anderson said the hospital has done its best to improve during a difficult time.
Peterson has agreed to work with Guggenheim through the transition. Guggenheim will take over by Oct. 1.
"We're looking at it as a long-term position," Anderson said. "He's coming with a wealth of experience in the private sector. He has extensive experience as an administrator of mental health hospitals."
Anderson also announced that Dr. Thomas Hester will oversee about 4,000 mental health clients through a new position — statewide medical-clinical director of the Health Department's Adult Mental Health Division.
Hester, who now oversees eight state hospitals in Georgia, will start work Aug. 1 in Hawai'i.
Anderson said Hester has played a key role in developing a comprehensive community-based service for Georgia.
