Hawaii State Hospital plans to build a new $140 million facility with 16-foot high security walls and enclosed courtyards, according to an article on the KHON2 website. The new psychiatric facility will be built on the upper campus of the state hospital and will replace a building that was demolished in 2016.
The new building will be therapeutic but also much safer. There will be courtyards where patients can walk freely, but there will be fencing around them. The design also will allow the staff to see all the common areas in each ward.
The state unveiled the new improvements amid questions on the way patient Randall Saito was able to escape and take a flight to the mainland in November 2017. Saito, who had been acquitted of murder by plea of insanity, escaped and flew first to Maui, then to California, where he was captured in Stockton. Officials say the new, 144-bed facility would have made it much more difficult for a patient to escape.
This Quick Read was submitted by Cathryn Jakicic, Healthcare Industries Editor, FacilitiesNet. For more about hospital campuses and other medical facilities, visit https://www.facilitiesnet.com/healthcarefacilities.
