SPRINGDALE -- Northwest Health will soon double its adult mental health care services for the region, the health system and other officials said this week.
Northwest is expanding its 29-bed mental health unit in Springdale to 47 beds. Most of them will be for the treatment of acute, short-term needs. The expansion is set to cost almost $4 million, employ 25 more care providers and other employees and wrap up early next year, the health system said in a release.
At a glance
Crisis stabilization units
Arkansas’ legislators earlier this year approved three crisis centers to be alternatives for people experiencing immediate mental health issues who encounter police and might otherwise be taken to jail. Gov. Asa Hutchinson this month said he’d ask for a fourth in Northwest Arkansas. The four are set to be located in the following counties:
• Craighead (northeast Arkansas)
• Pulaski (central)
• Sebastian (west)
• Washington (northwest)
Source: Staff report
"Many patients arrive in our emergency department in crisis," waiting to be transferred to psychiatric care when there's room, Dr. Danelle Richards, emergency department medical director, said in a statement. "This expansion will help provide access to needed behavioral health services and allow general emergency services to be focused where they are needed in the ER."
Northwest earlier this year also committed to housing one of four crisis stabilization units across the state for people experiencing severe, immediate mental health issues, many of whom might otherwise end up in a local jail. Gov. Asa Hutchinson three weeks ago said he would ask legislators for $1.4 million a year for the center.
The crisis unit will have up to 16 beds and serve Benton, Madison and Washington counties. It could bring Northwest's total mental health beds to 63.
Those who wind up in the unit but need more than 24 hours of help could then go to the hospital's expanded mental health unit, which Northwest called the only-of-its-kind in the area, said Washington County Circuit Judge Cristi Beaumont. Beaumont and other Northwest Arkansas officials and advocates have called for a crisis center for years.
"It works out really well that they're in the same place," Beaumont said. "I really think this is going to make a significant difference in Northwest Arkansas in humanely treating our mentally ill."
Around one in four Americans is experiencing clinical depression and other mental illnesses, and about half will develop such an illness at some point in their lifetime, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The federal agency also reports that the issue is particularly common in Arkansas and the rest of the South.
Northwest's unit typically is almost filled with patients whose illnesses include bipolar disorder, severe anxiety and others, spokeswoman Christina Bull wrote in an email.
Several Northwest Arkansas groups provide counseling and psychiatric services, including Northwest, Vantage Point Behavioral Health Hospital, Ozark Guidance and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. Mercy Northwest Arkansas and Washington Regional Medical Center offer mental health services at some locations.
The fact that the need for such services is only growing is unfortunate, "but it is good news that when it's needed, it's there," Laura H. Tyler, CEO of Ozark Guidance, said of expansions like Northwest's. "We need to be keeping pace."
Ozark Guidance, the university or both could end up staffing the crisis unit, though many of the details are still up in the air, Beaumont said. The center will need some renovations, and it's unclear when it'll get running. But the state's support, community donations and Medicaid and other health coverage should be enough to sustain it, she said.
"I just feel so happy," said Nancy Kahanak, whose advocacy group Judicial Equality for Mental Illness pushed for the crisis unit. "It's actually happening. So this is when real work begins in terms of actually figuring out what it's going to look like."
NW News on 08/31/2017