Seeking info about Four Winds Hopsital in Westchester

Gentleman_nurse, MSN · Jul 18, 2014

Anyone?

psych_dont_scare_me · May 3, 2021

Well, I can tell you from 2019-2020 Four Winds was a rather unpleasant environment for a lot of us. It's a family owned business and the woman who inherited it from her father appeared to regard any spending as painful. So the buildings were falling into disrepair, the units were chronically understaffed, there was no art/music/OT of any meaningful kind, and the formulary was reduced to a handful of the cheapest generic medications. Probably the most distressing aspect was the profound lack of experience in the clinical departments. The MHWs, RNs, NPs and SWs were literally a week out of school when they started taking on patients. Hey, they’re cheap and don’t know any better, so it’s not like it’s their fault. But it really felt like the constant turn-over was a disservice to the patients and staff. The administration wouldn’t even pay for CPI or MOAB training for the staff, so 18year old aides or 22year old RNs were thrown in with troubled and volatile kids without being given any instruction on how to de-escalate or manage behaviors. It was a mess.

Oh, and the computers were absurdly out of date; there wasn’t even an eMAR. Orders were done by 25yr old NPs with ballpoint pens on carbon paper… in the year 2019. It was unbelievable.

The whole time I was there I just kept hearing about how “brilliant” the medical director/ owner was. But when I would watch her private driver drop her off at the admin building with her perfectly groomed “rescue dog,” it made more sense as to why insurance coverage dictated when a patient gets discharged rather than how they were actually adjusting to their meds or how close they were to their baseline. The owner would burst onto the unit in her $1,000 shoes amid [literally] a dozen med students scurrying around her, bark some orders at us then flit off again. Meanwhile, we were told not to put a patient on 1:1 because “there’s no staff available.”

Like any institution, there were some great employees and at times some great work was being done with patients. But it appeared almost superfluous to the administration’s real objective of ever increasing the amount of cash flowing into one person’s pocket.

The unions have improved the care in so many hospitals in NY, it’s kinda a shame the employees at Four Winds haven’t taken one up. It might be the only way to get some of the profits to benefit the patients and clinical staff. At least that’s what I think

Hopefully that answers some of your questions, even if it is a few years late!

hreilly · Jul 7, 2022

as a parent who's child was in there many many times..don't do it!

These people run an almost monopoly for child psych in NY. There is next to no therapy, the place is dirty, kids looking after kids, " school" is obsolete, my child was jumped away from the cameras, the children are given utter crap food, yet get led to lunch past the visitor/ staff food line which actually has good food. It is a cruel, neglectful place dressed up with pine trees that the kids never even get to enjoy.

As a parent when your child needs in patient, yes you have to do it, but you have to basically do it or else. The only place with beds is always 4 winds. I sent my child there , and the child I got back I didn't know. This place is an utter dumping ground, and if your child is not " better" in the amount of time your insurance will pay out, they try to ship them off to Rockland psych.

Some wonderful employees go there trying to make a change, but you cannot change the actual entity