MD seeks permanent solution for failing HVAC at embattled Perkins Hospital

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The Maryland Board of Public Works will vote next Wednesday on whether to replace Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center‘s HVAC system, which has failed repeatedly in the last year.

The project is expected to cost $23 million and take about 18 months to complete, according to the Department of General Services, which manages state facilities.

That cost will be on top of the more than $21 million already approved for emergency repairs and maintenance at the Jessup hospital starting in late 2023.

The Department of General Services has requested that the Board of Public Works — made up of the governor, comptroller and treasurer — approve an expedited, noncompetitive procurement with the company that’s been making emergency repairs on the facility’s system for nearly the last year.

Department officials have contended that the delays a competitive procurement process would cause could jeopardize the health and safety of hospital patients and staff members.

Chronic issues with Perkins’s HVAC system date to at least November 2023, when the facility had a “severe heating failure” across multiple units, Board of Public Works meeting documents state.

The state’s contractor will need to remove and replace multiple boilers and other boiler room components, repair or replace chillers and repair heating and cooling systems throughout the facility. Contracting workers will also set up new water treatment equipment and upgrade the electrical switchgear, the documents state.

Perkins is the state’s only maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital, with a capacity of 289 patients and a waitlist of court-ordered patients.

After the system failure in November, the Maryland Department of Health contracted with Hunt Valley-based Warwick Supply and Equipment on an emergency basis to install a temporary low-pressure steam boiler and generator to stabilize the hot water heating and cooling system.

The Department of Health “worked immediately to protect the patients at Perkins with the emergency contract,” spokesperson Ebony Wilder said in a statement Wednesday.

Wilder said the facility and maintenance issues have been “myriad and long-documented” and “present at Perkins for years.”

During the upcoming meeting, Board of Public Works members may question why the department didn’t act sooner to replace the system.

Additional staff members have also had to manually control the facility’s heating and cooling because the automated system failed.

More critical failures in the HVAC system have occurred since November of last year, including with the hot water heating and cooling systems.

This has required the state to lease two chillers, generators and temporary heating equipment and cover onsite supervision and operation of the equipment, not only to ensure the welfare of the hospital patients and staff but also to store and distribute medication.

Under the new, expedited contract, Warwick would complete the replacement project while remaining under an emergency contract through March 2026.

Wilder said health and general services department officials have worked together since the emergency began in late 2023 to plan for the HVAC system to be replaced while continuing to rely on emergency maintenance services.

The Department of General Services has contended that Warwick is the only vendor qualified for such a project, considering its familiarity with the facility and ability to stabilize the system during the ongoing emergency.

“Any cessation of operations due to errors in coordination or phasing could require evacuation of the facility,” meeting documents state.

The leadership at Perkins was recently under scrutiny after a Washington Post investigation found that officials there had ignored employee complaints about staffing and other issues for years, and that incidents of violence at the facility have included a patient brawl, a patient being raped by his roommate and a patient dying under unclear circumstances.

Following The Post’s investigation, Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott wrote to department employees that officials would be conducting a “top-to-bottom review” and an investigation into policies and procedures at Perkins, the paper reported last month.

Legislators planned to bring Herrera Scott and her team in for a hearing about the incidents at Perkins, according to a WYPR report.

The hospital’s CEO, Scott Moran, also left his position earlier this year. He was placed on leave after staff members alleged that he threatened them, and in February he agreed to a restraining order that temporarily barred him from the facility and from being near two of his colleagues, The Post reported.