Long-Stay Patients With Nowhere to Go Keep USVI Hospital Beds Occupied as Encarnacion Pushes Action

Patients who no longer require hospitalization but have nowhere else to go are continuing to occupy costly hospital beds in the Virgin Islands, prompting Health Commissioner Justa Encarnacion to call for more frequent coordination among the hospitals, Human Services and long-term care providers as nursing-home capacity remains limited. The issue emerged Wednesday during a meeting of the Government Hospitals and Health Facilities Corporation board, where officials revisited the territory’s uncompensated-care burden but also focused on the difficulty of discharging long-stay patients who no longer need acute hospital care. “Those are conversations I think we’ve been having over and over again with the Department of Human Services,” Ms. Encarnacion said. “Everyone right now is challenged in terms of having to open rooms up at the nursing homes that we have,” she continued. The commissioner suggested more regular meetings among the agencies and institutions involved so that updated info...