The Hawaii Department of Health is planning to overhaul the state’s psychiatric hospital in Kaneohe — more than doubling the number of beds and installing tighter security — in light of hundreds of reported assaults by patients against staff in recent years and a sharp increase in the number of people being committed to the facility.

“This project is the No. 1 priority for the Department of Health this year,” said Virginia Pressler, director of the Health Department, at a news conference Tuesday at the Hawaii State Hospital. “It is desperately needed and long overdue.”

Pressler was joined at the media briefing by William May, administrator for the Hawaii State Hospital, as well as Sen. Jill Tokuda, chairwoman of the Senate Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Della Au Belatti, who chairs the House Health Committee.

Ten years ago, the state Health Department commissioned a master plan to revamp the facility, which is the only publicly funded psychiatric hospital in the state. However, the plan was never funded or implemented.

A revised master plan unveiled Tuesday focuses on separating patients at high risk for harming themselves or others from the rest of the population, as well as increasing the facility’s overall capacity to 516 from 178 beds.

“It’s taken us a while to get here, but the new master plan has us heading in the right direction to do what is right for our patients, our staff and our community,” May said.

There have been 327 assaults or attempted assaults on staff at the facility over the past 2-1/2  years, according to data from the Health Department. In one of the more recent incidents this year, a staff worker was put in a headlock by one of the patients and punched repeatedly, according to police.

Last year, hospital staff filed a class-action lawsuit against the state claiming supervisors fostered the attacks by creating an unsafe work environment.

A state Senate committee also launched an investigation into the hospital, conducting 10 hearings and reviewing 12,000 pages of documents that were turned over in response to subpoenas. A final report warned that the ongoing assaults could eventually end in a fatality if safety problems weren’t quickly addressed.

The revamped master plan is designed to address many of the safety problems.

The Goddard Building — which has sat vacant for years, and is crumbling and overgrown with weeds — will be rebuilt to better handle high-risk patients, according to the plan.

The new patient quarters will increase the staff’s ability to see patients by eliminating blind spots and creating direct lines of sight into the rooms from a central nursing station. The patients will have their own rehabilitation facilities and dining room and the building will be surrounded by a wall and high-security fencing.

The cost of the new 144-bed facility, which still needs funding, is pegged at $160 million. Renovations are expected to start next year.

The facility is being modeled after the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo, where May previously served as director.

May took over as head of the Hawaii State Hospital last year, replacing Bill Elliott, who retired.

Renovation of the Goddard Building will allow the hospital to house a total of 252 psychiatric patients.

Over the long term, the Health Department also plans to demolish and replace the Guensberg Building with another 144-bed facility dedicated to high-risk patients.

That building, which is also deteriorating, had to be reopened recently to absorb increasing numbers of patients.

The Health Department hopes that the new building will allow 40 patients housed offsite at Kahi Mohala in Ewa to be brought back to Kaneohe.

The Health Department is also planning to renovate or relocate many of the other buildings on the 103-acre campus. This includes demolishing the currently vacant Haloa Building and Iolani Building, in order to move the hospital’s base yard, warehouse and plant operations from the nearby Windward Community College campus to hospital grounds. The department also plans to relocate its transitional care cottages, which include 22 beds, to make more room for administrative offices and parking.

The state still needs to obtain funding and establish a timeline for the longer-term renovations.

The Health Department is still planning to covert its Bishop Building into a private, skilled nursing facility that will help house some of the state hospital’s elderly and disabled patients. That plan has been in the works since 2007 and is contracted out to Avalon Health Care Group, based in Salt Lake City. Demolition of the building is still awaiting approval from the State Historic Preservation Division, according to the Health Department’s master plan.

The Hawaii State Hospital was intended to serve the state’s mentally ill population, but over the years it has come to support a subset of that population — mentally ill residents ordered there by the courts after committing minor or serious crimes.

May said that over the past four years there has been a 57 percent increase in court-ordered referrals. He said it’s not clear why there has been an increase, but that the uptick in Hawaii appears to mirror trends in other states.

Inmates can be ordered to the State Hospital if the courts determine they need to be treated for a mental illness or they’re determined not guilty by reason of insanity.

By law, the Health Department has three days to find the person a bed.

May said the State Hospital has complied with the law and has never turned anyone away.

Tokuda said that renovations have been delayed far too long.

“We really have to get down to business and just get this done,” she said. “We have waited far too long to be able to do what’s right for the people who make sure that they take care of the people here at the state hospital.”