New hospital chief optimistic about future
Mark A. Fridovich brings 30 years of experience to the Hawaii State Hospital
A psychologist with 30 years of experience in various mental health areas in Massachusetts is now administrator of the Hawaii State Hospital.
Mark A. Fridovich, 56, began work Aug. 21 at the Kaneohe hospital. Bill Elliott had been acting administrator since Paul Guggenheim left the position in June 2005.
"I am very impressed with the hospital and with the staff at a number of levels," Fridovich said last month in an interview. "They are very caring and conscientious. Some have a lot of institutional knowledge. They have been very welcoming to me and helped me in terms of understanding the hospital role."
Fridovich, former deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Retardation, is expected "to bring his years of administrative and clinical leadership to guide the hospital through this new era as it emerges from federal oversight," said Dr. Thomas Hester, chief of the state Health Department's Adult Mental Health Division.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state in 1991 over alleged unconstitutional conditions at the hospital.
The 15 years of federal court jurisdiction over the system came to an end last month with a final telephone call from the Health Department to the Justice Department, Hester said.
Fridovich said he had followed news of the case, and when he saw the Hawaii hospital administrative position advertised, he thought "this was a great opportunity and a good moment in our lives so that we were able to do it."
He had achieved goals he set for himself in his career in Massachusetts, and he and his wife, Helene Satz, also a psychologist, were ready to try living in another place, he said. She is a part-time reading teacher at Waimanalo Elementary School.
Fridovich "has been a really welcome addition to our executive team," Hester said. "He's energetic and he's upbeat. He has helped lead efforts to continue to reduce the census at the State Hospital."
Hester added that the state is getting better at diverting people and using other facilities. For example, he said the division has a program at the Queen's Medical Center, and "we will pay for people to be admitted as an alternative to Hawaii State Hospital."
He said the Adult Mental Health Division is developing additional capacity for mental-health patients in a conditional release program, using houses on the hospital grounds and community facilities. For the first time this year, some patients with long-term physical needs were discharged into expanded adult residential care homes, Hester said.
He said the hospital has an important mission "because we're the only state (mental health) hospital in Hawaii with a critical role in taking care of the most seriously ill people and those with forensic involvement with the criminal justice system."
In an Adult Mental Health Division newsletter, Fridovich said residents with mental-health needs might be placed in other hospitals, but the responsibility falls on Hawaii State Hospital.
"We have to be prepared to accept and treat everybody safely and in compliance with federal and state law," he said. "We must do it in a way that also is respectful to everybody and promotes good treatment."
"We're in a positive phase," Hester said, adding that his division is voluntarily following through with improvements.
He said the number of islanders receiving mental-health services from the division "has gone up tremendously," totaling more than 12,500 as of July 1.