Residents to remain, more staff, patients to come at future 100-bed Zambarano unit in Burrillville

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BURRILLVILLE – State health officials discussed plans for the future of the Burrillville unit of Eleanor Slater Hospital at a community meeting this week, assuring locals that space will remain for the facility’s current residents, while more beds will ultimately be added for new patients in need of long-term, acute care.

It was the first of what will be several gatherings regarding the state’s planned $100 million investment in the Zambarano campus, according to Director of Rhode Island’s Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities & Hospitals Richard Charest, giving members of the public a chance to ask questions, and weigh in with their concerns and vision for the facility.

“We’re very, very early on in the process,” Charest said Wednesday, Feb. 22 at a meeting in the campus’s 85-year-old Beazley building.

Built in the 1900s as a sanatorium to house patients with tuberculosis, Zambarano is now a division of the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital, which also includes a campus in Cranston. In more recent years, the Burrillville hospital has become something of a permanent home to patients with complex and demanding medical and psychiatric issues in need of constant care.

“Over the years, we sort of morphed into a facility that continues to care for patients with higher needs,” Charest explained.

For those now living at Zambarano, that care will continue, Charest said, while new beds are added for long-term acute care patients. Services offered, he noted, will be different from in-patient rehabilitation and skilled nursing facilities, with a specialty of treating patients with more than one condition, but who are expected to return home after an average stay of more than 25 days.

Currently, said Brett Johnson, chief executive officer for Eleanor Slater, there is a shortage of such services in the state.

“A lot are leaving the state of Rhode Island to receive care in New York and Connecticut,” Johnson said.

Faulkner Consulting Group is now conducting an assessment to evaluate the type and number of beds the will be needed once a new, modern hospital is built on the Wallum Lake Road campus.

“We’re retooling so we can accomodate the needs of all Rhode Islanders,” Charest said. “They’re going to try to come up with an objective assessment of what’s needed here.”

Between current residents and those anticipated in need of Zambarano’s new services, Charest said the hospital is expected to have around 100 beds.

“We think the combination of the two is going to have us in this ballpark,” he said.

As services increase, he said, so too, will the need for workers.

“From a staffing perspective, we will definitely have a place for all of the staff, and we will need more staff,” Charest said.

Johnson outlined Eleanor Slater’s plans to attract that staff to Burrillville amid a nationwide nursing shortage.

“We are spending a lot of time trying to fix the recruitment challenge,” Johnson said, noting that the hospital has begun fostering relationships with universities and firms in neighboring states.

Through a partnership with the Burrillville School Department, some 80 high school career and technical students are expected to take part in shadowing programs at the new hospital.

“Hopefully they will grow and develop into professional nurses and beyond,” Johnson said of the students.

Charest noted that the hospital is already receiving more applications, and that for current staff, the investment will provide growth opportunities.

Wednesday’s discussion seemed to mark a turning point in what has been a community-wide effort to save the hospital over the past three years. Prior to approval of funding to invest at Zambarano, many in Burrillville believed that state was on track to quietly close the facility, with residents sent home, or transferred to other hospitals in the state.

Efforts by legislators, including Sen. Jessica de la Cruz, ultimately led Gov. Dan McKee to include funding in the state budget for the new facility, with older buildings, now vacant for decades, on track to be demolished. All current residents will be transferred to the modern building after construction, Charest said.

“I do appreciate that we’re not talking about closing Zambarano anymore,” Councilor Raymond Trinque said to the visitors this week. “Maybe that won’t have to be our focus anymore.”

Charest, who was named director of BHDDH in 2021, said he’d spoken with de la Cruz earlier in the day.

“She’s a great advocate,” he said.

The Zambarano name, he said, will remain.

“I’m not sure what we’re going to call the new building,” Charest said.

Confirming more than once with officials that those considered the state’s most vulnerable will not need to relocate, advocates, families and the residents themselves seemed on Wednesday to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

“For individuals who have been here for a period of time, this is their home,” Charest said. “We want them to feel comfortable.”

“We’re taking care of some of the most fragile individuals Rhode Island has, and they deserve that care,” said Johnson.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. You have no idea When your only son gets into a accident resulted with Traumatic Brain lnjury and you don’t have the money to put him in a place like Spalding Rehab There is a lot to consider Your Health insurance if they decide to Cover the Stay or refuse then you have to find next place. Thank God for Our State we have 2 Hospitals many states do not have our young children go to Nursing homes and die. Keep in touch with me I will tell you more. My son has lived 20 years he was 20 at accident he will be 40 in June great care aside from this We are a Family unlike any other Hospital. So before you run your mouth look into this. Written by Mother.

    • Have you ever been to Zambarano. The place is disgusting, the care is awful, and the taxpayer pays huge union wages for sub patient care. The hospital is soo scary that you could film a horror film at the location. The state should privatize the two state hospitals which would lower the cost and improve the level of care. But the union would be out of a job for the poor performance.

  2. This hospital is the biggest waste of money for taxpayers. The hospitals is poorly run with union personnel scamming overtime and giving poor care. If you compare this hospital to other state hospitals it is the most expensive in the country on a per patient basis. The best thing the state could do is put these patients in other facilities in the state with better care and tear down the building. Governor McKee is the most financially irresponsible governor ever if he thinks building another hospital is the most responsible use of tax dollars. McKee is just trying gather the greedy union vote. McKee make the best decision for all the taxpayers and the state and not the decision in the best interest of yourself. Second a hospital in a remote section of the state makes zero sense.

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