St' E's to open new behavioral health facility

YOUNGSTOWN

The new Mercy Health Behavioral Health Institute, housed in St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital’s former labor and delivery unit, is on track to open Jan. 1.

The nearly $10 million project, which got underway in March, is about 75 percent complete, said Donald Koenig, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Mercy Health Youngstown, during a tour of the facility Thursday.

The Mercy Health Behavioral Health Institute is a 38-bed, 38,000-square-foot facility for inpatient services created to meet the growing demand for all levels of behavioral health services in the Mahoning Valley, Koenig said.

It will increase the number of inpatient beds at St. Elizabeth Youngstown by 20, said Koenig,

He said Mahoning County has only 18 inpatient adult beds for behavioral health – those at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital.

“The Mahoning Valley is the most under-resourced and under-bedded market in Ohio for adult behavioral health beds,” Koenig said.

After 1988, when then-Gov. Richard Celeste signed the Mental Health Act that shifted funding and treatment from state-run hospitals to county-level mental health boards, shrinking budgets caused state hospitals for the mentally ill, including Youngstown’s Woodside Receiving Hospital, to close.

Rad more about the situation and the new facility in Friday's Vihndicator or on Vindy.com.