Spring Grove

Rosie L. Stanfield, a registered nurse who later became the first African-American director of nursing at Spring Grove Hospital Center, died Saturday of ovarian cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The longtime Randallstown resident was 66. The daughter of a long-distance truck driver and a homemaker, Rosie Louise Walker — who went by the name Rose — was born one of 10 children in Olney. The family later moved to Catonsville, where she attended Baltimore County public schools.

In-patient units at Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville have become troubled environments where serious assaults on hospital staff are common, according to a scathing new report from a consultant for the Maryland health department. The chaos at the state's largest psychiatric hospital, the consultant found, is fueled by a few patients who "prey upon patients and staff with relative impunity" after being ordered by courts to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation — sometimes with dubious symptoms.

The Schaefer administration and the General Assembly ought to be ashamed of themselves for allowing Spring Grove Hospital Center to revert to a dumping ground for mentally ill patients that is so bereft of basic services it cannot meet even minimum federal or private standards of decency.As Sun reporter Suzanne Wooton documented last Sunday, Spring Grove is so dreadfully understaffed and its buildings are in such terrible shape that nurses and doctors have given up the pretense of trying to treat patients.

Baltimore County officials want to create a regional park on a piece of the Spring Grove Hospital Center campus in Catonsville, property that the University of Maryland, Baltimore County also has been eyeing to expand research facilities. County Executive Kevin Kamenetz said Thursday he is working with state officials to secure an 8.8-acre parcel that's no longer used by the state psychiatric facility. Spring Grove is a 425-bed hospital providing inpatient psychiatric services for adults and adolescents.

Police and federal agents in two states were seeking a 32-year-old man charged with burglary, theft and rape who escaped early yesterday from Spring Grove State Hospital in Catonsville, a state police investigator said. Paul D. McGlothlin, who has addresses in Harford County and Delta, Pa., was being held at the Harford County Detention Center awaiting trial on burglary and theft charges when a court ordered him Aug. 14 to the hospital for treatment, said Cpl. James DeCourcey, the criminal investigation division supervisor at the Bel Air barracks.

A review found hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of projects were awarded, without a competitive bid process, to four contractors to do maintenance work at Spring Grove Hospital Center, according to a special report released yesterday by the state's Department of Legislative Services. Spring Grove is the state's oldest and largest hospital, serving more than 1,000 patients a year on a 190-acre campus in Catonsville. The review, which spanned July 2005 to February 2008, found that projects were given to a particular contractor after Spring Grove officials had previously faxed the competing bids to the contractor.

State health officials are pondering what, if anything, to do about Dr. Bruce L. Regan, the superintendent of the Spring Grove Hospital Center, who was disciplined last week for writing improper prescriptions in his private psychiatric practice.Regan, who has been superintendent at the Spring Grove hospital for the mentally ill since 1987, has been placed on three years' probation by the state Board of Physician Quality Assurance.He was found by the board to have prescribed narcotics in a manner "clearly outside the accepted standard of care."

The Rev. Henry J. Hughes, who ministered to the mentally ill and the addicted, died Sunday of a stroke at University of Maryland Medical Center. He was 82.Father Hughes retired in 1983 as chaplain at Spring Grove Hospital Center. He was the state institution's first full-time Catholic chaplain after his appointment in 1963. He began his association with the institution on a part-time basis in 1948."I see the young and the old of all races, those whose troubles may be mild or severe. There are alcoholics, drug addicts, people who suffer from psychosis or neurosis, schizophrenics and a few people who are retarded," Father Hughes said in an Evening Sun interview in 1964.

Concerned that the Maryland budget crunch might prompt the state to close Spring Grove mental hospital in Catonsville, Baltimore County health officials this week are sending two separate letters to county government leaders urging that Spring Grove remain open.The health officials said they fear the grim economic climate, combined with the trend toward removing mental patients from institutions and placing them in community-based treatment programs, could persuade state officials to close one of the three remaining large state hospitals and consolidate the other two.The three hospitals are 197-year-old Spring Grove, Crownsville in Anne Arundel County and Springfield in Carroll County.

Bowing to community pressure, Baltimore County officials said yesterday they will move a Catonsville shelter to the grounds of Spring Grove Hospital Center by the end of the month -- a move that immediately raised concerns for homeless advocates.The shelter, at the Banneker Center in one of the county's historically black communities just off Interstate 695 and U.S. 40, has for years sparked protests from neighbors. It shares a building with a Head Start program and an athletic club for teen-agers, said County Councilman Stephen G. Sam Moxley, a Catonsville Democrat.

Two copper-theft suspects arrested Tuesday on the Spring Grove Hospital Center campus in Catonsville have been charged with burglary, theft and destruction of property, according to Maryland State Police. Police have also recovered more than 130 pounds of copper pipe the pair had collected before their arrests, which state police said would be worth about $400 if sold as scrap. Charged were Dennis W. Dyer, 43, of the 8100 block of Mild Haven Road in Dundalk, and Matthew R. Blizzard, 29, who police believe lives in the Baltimore County men's homeless shelter off Wade Ave. on the psychiatric hospital's campus.

Two alleged copper thieves were arrested at Spring Grove Hospital Center on Tuesday, one after hiding for hours in the attic of an abandoned building on the Catonsville campus while police surrounded him. Dennis W. Dyer, 43, of the 8100 block of Mild Haven Road in Dundalk, climbed out of a porthole in the roof of the psychiatric hospital's Hamilton Building, which was closed and condemned in 1974, and handed himself over to state police troopers...

Rosie L. Stanfield, a registered nurse who later became the first African-American director of nursing at Spring Grove Hospital Center, died Saturday of ovarian cancer at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson. The longtime Randallstown resident was 66. The daughter of a long-distance truck driver and a homemaker, Rosie Louise Walker — who went by the name Rose — was born one of 10 children in Olney. The family later moved to Catonsville, where she attended Baltimore County public schools.

State officials tapped a veteran psychiatric hospital administrator Wednesday to take over leadership of Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center, where two recent killings have sparked questions about the safety and therapy provided at Maryland's maximum-security mental facility. Dr. David S. Helsel, 57, who has run Spring Grove Hospital Center in Catonsville since 2004, said he plans to immediately join the examination of "all systems" at Perkins, including those related to staff, patients and resources.

I found the recent report on the potential fate of the Spring Grove Hospital Center campus ( Catonsville Times, "State studies to decide fate of Spring Grove," Aug. 24) to be informative but also perplexing. The article cited the results of a study performed by the Sparks-based SC&H Group, a public accounting firm, stating, "The state would recoup the proposed $180 million cost of building a new facility within 18 years of its completion through operational savings from the condensed footprint of the modern facility and the end of expensive, deferred maintenance costs piling up at the current, deteriorating campus.

In the race for a seat on the Baltimore County Council in District 1, much debate revolves around a project that at best is years away from construction: a mixed-use commercial project far bigger than anything its developer has done before, which has not been officially filed and would be built on state-owned land in Catonsville that is not for sale. The Promenade — envisioned by Catonsville developer Steve Whalen as a complex of more than a million square feet including stores, restaurants, hotels, office, condominiums and public recreation area — has been discussed around Catonsville for years.

Dr. Carmen I. Rivera-Cuesta, a retired psychiatrist who had worked at Spring Grove State Hospital, died of complications from Parkinson's disease Oct. 13 at Manor Care in Towson. The Pikesville resident was 75. Carmen I. Rivera was born and raised in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, and earned her bachelor's degree in chemistry in 1948 from the University of Puerto Rico, graduating magna cum laude. Dr. Rivera-Cuesta became a registered medical technologist after earning a degree from the Registry of Medical Technologists in 1950.

Battle lines were drawn last night for what promises to be a bitter years-long fight over the projected turn-of-the-century closing of one of the three Central Maryland psychiatric hospitals.The hospitals are Spring Grove in Catonsville, Crownsville in Anne Arundel County and Springfield in Sykesville, Carroll County.State-employee unions oppose closing any of the three, and officials of each are ready to fight for their hospital.The Mental Health Association of Maryland agrees with the plan and wants to see all three hospitals closed by 2010 as long as any fiscal savings are redirected toward community mental health care and rehabilitation.

The fate of potential surplus land at Spring Grove State Hospital campus in Catonsville seems to be having a powerful impact on the County Council race in the 1st District of Baltimore County. The issue has given two inexperienced candidates (Rebecca Dongarra and Greg Morgan) some momentum in the contest even though they face two other better-connected and more experienced Democrats. Tom Quirk is the party "heir apparent" and chamber of commerce crony, while Brian Bailey is the ambitious and young chairman of the Democratic Central Committee in Baltimore County.