Doctor: Maple Leaf's closure 'irresponsible'

Maple Leaf Treatment Center gave Vermont's Health Department little indication that the situation was dire enough to close its doors before last week.

One doctor called the sudden closure "irresponsible."

Maple Leaf's Board of Directors told the state last Thursday — the same day as employees — of its decision to close both its residential addiction treatment center in Underhill and outpatient facility in Colchester. The board did not give specific reasons, said Deputy Health Commissioner Barbara Cimaglio.

"I've been here since 2004, and there's never been one of our providers that has closed," Cimaglio said. "This is truly a rare situation, and hopefully unique."

Staffing and financing were among a "combination of factors" considered when the board discussed the future of the nonprofit at its meeting last Wednesday, said Board President Jeff Messina.

In a statement last week, the board wrote that it had "determined it is not feasible to continue operations under the current circumstances."

The health department had been planning to visit Maple Leaf this week to determine if it should reopen after a 30-day closure that began in January.

"I didn't have any specific indications of how serious this situation was and whether or not they would actually be able to reopen in 30 days," Cimaglio said. "We were working with them and trying to be helpful where we could."

Meanwhile, former Maple Leaf employees are connecting with other opiate addiction resource centers in Chittenden and Franklin counties to try to establish support groups for former Maple Leaf clients, including 150 addicts who had been receiving medication-assisted treatment at the outpatient facility in Colchester. Evan Smith, who had worked as a clinician at Maple Leaf since July 2015, said Tuesday that about a half dozen former employees have been in touch with Turning Point Centers in both counties.

The future of the facility remains unclear. Cimaglio said Maple Leaf's board is in charge of figuring out next steps for the treatment center.

Messina wrote in an email, "The Board is pursuing all options in the hopes that the facilities will again be utilized to serve the recovery community."

Red flags

Cimaglio said the request by Maple Leaf for a 30-day closure of its residential facility was a "red flag" for the health department. The self-imposed closure was designed to   to ensure there was enough staff to accommodate growing demands, to conduct training, to do small renovations on facilities and to develop a recruiting system for licensed staff, Maple Leaf had said.

"Of course, we were concerned," Cimaglio said. "We did think about it and were making some plan B arrangements."

Former clinician Smith said management shared concerns about the facility's finances at a staff-wide meeting in January in response to questions.

"There was no information shared with us that the board was planning on shutting down the whole facility," Smith said.

Messina did not respond to follow-up questions about the facility's finances.

The two doctors who provided services at the outpatient facility, Dr. Deb Richter and Dr. Paul Bertocci, have contacted all of their Maple Leaf clients to  plan continued treatment, Cimaglio said. The answering message at Maple Leaf informs callers of ways to get in touch with the doctors and with board president Messina.

Richter said Tuesday many of her clients had expressed panic when she contacted them over the weekend. She called the sudden closure "irresponsible."

"This is like someone interrupting your seizure medication, and then all of a sudden thinking you don't have a doctor to prescribe for you," Richter said. "This is a physical dependence, and if they were to go without medication, they'd go into withdrawal. That triggers people to want to use. The point of being on the medication is to prevent that from happening."

Richter said she has a temporary office in Burlington to continue to work with patients. Cimaglio and Richter said Bertocci will continue treating his patients in Morrisville. Bertocci declined comment when reached Tuesday.

"We've made arrangements for every single one of them to be taken care of," Richter said. "No one is going to be dropped."

Helping and rebuilding

Smith, of Essex, said he and his former Maple Leaf colleagues are also attempting to provide support for addicts affected by the closure. He said plans for support groups are in the works.

"Anything we can do in the recovery community to support them is worth every effort we can make," Smith said. "Not only are the clients really struggling with this, but we have a staff who had been working at Maple Leaf that really wanted to find something they can do."

Gary de Carolis, executive director of Chittenden County's Turning Point Center, said his organization is willing to help in whatever way possible. He said the center is open seven days per week and offers peer support, 12-step meetings, yoga, meditation, acupuncture and other programs to help addicts in recovery.

Deputy Health Commissioner Cimaglio said the  state is working with Vermont's other two residential treatment programs, Serenity House in Wallingford and Valley Vista in Bradford, to manage patients.

Jack Duffy, executive director at Valley Vista, said the waiting list for his facility has about 30 patients as of Tuesday and the waiting time for a bed is about one week. The facility began with 71 adult and nine children beds, but Duffy said Valley Vista has been able to add 10 patient beds since the January announcement of Maple Leaf's temporary closure. He said Valley Vista is considering ways to add more beds.

"It's stressed us a little bit," Duffy said, adding that the facility is now at capacity.

Last week, Recovery House CEO Dale Robb said Serenity House's waiting list had grown to more than 20 people and it is operating its 24-bed facility at capacity.  Robb had estimated the average time for those on the waiting list is two to three weeks. Attempts to reach Robb this week were unsuccessful.

Cimaglio declined to go into detail about plans being developed for more beds.

"Obviously, our goal is to replace as many of the 41 beds that we had at Maple Leaf as quickly as possible," Cimaglio said.

Report: Mistreatment allegations at Maple Leaf

Contact Elizabeth Murray at 651-4835 or emurray@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LizMurraySMC.