$10M mental health unit to open Jan. 1 at St. E's

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

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. Woodside opened in 1945 and closed in 1996, leaving many mentally ill people with nowhere to go.

Now, at St. Elizabeth, the expanded department will create 40 skilled health-care jobs, including registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, social workers, music and art therapists and psychiatrists.

The acute inpatient center includes services for adults with behavioral health problems and patients over 65 suffering with dementia and who are medically frail.

Also, the BHI recently opened a partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient program offering day treatment options, Koenig said.

The overall goal of the BHI is to enhance the quality of life for behavioral health patients who come to Mercy Health for their care, he said.

To that end, Koenig said, the BHI leads the development of behavioral health services throughout the Mercy Health system by establishing behavioral access centers in emergency departments; providing evidence-based acute-care treatment services in each market; providing post-acute services consisting of partial hospitalization programs, intensive outpatient programs, chemical dependency programs and structured outpatient programs in each market; developing outpatient services and outpatient clinics in each market; and collaborating with primary-care practices through the integration of behavioral consultants in each market.

Danis Construction, with headquarters in Dayton and offices in Cincinnati and Columbus, is building the St. Elizabeth project.