UNC Rex to build mental health zone with $2.5M gift

A $2.5 million donation to UNC Rex Healthcare will allow the hospital to build a holding area for patients seeking mental health treatment in Rex Hospital’s emergency department.

The separate behavioral area – which will be adjacent to the Emergency Department on the main Raleigh campus off Blue Ridge Road – will include eight private rooms with a common dayroom and lots of windows, according to an announcement from the hospital Tuesday morning.

“This generous gift will allow us to expedite construction of a calm, secure and healing environment to hold patients who really belong in a licensed behavioral health facility,” UNC REX president Steve Burriss said in a statement.

The new treatment area will be located in space now used for cardiovascular care. Cardio care is moving to Rex’s new heart tower, the North Carolina Heart & Vascular Hospital, which opens in early March.

According to the announcement, the donor, who wished to remain anonymous, wanted to use the money for a behavioral health emergency zone because of the increasing number of patients who come to Rex in need of treatment.

During fiscal year 2016, 1,400 patients requiring mental health treatment visited UNC Rex’s Emergency Department, according to hospital spokesman Alan Wolf. That was up from 1,200 in fiscal year 2015. The hospital is expecting that number to increase to 1,600 this year.

Hospital ERs across the state are often crowded with patients in need of mental health treatment awaiting too-few beds – even though chaotic emergency rooms are not optimum areas for people with mental health needs.

Wolf said UNC Rex opted to build the private holding area rather than add mental health beds because there are existing facilities better equipped to help patients with behavioral needs. “We are not a specialized psychiatric facility,” Wolf said.

He added that UNC WakeBrook, a mental health facility on Sunnybrook Road owned by Wake County but operated by UNC Health Care, recently added 12 beds, bringing the total number of beds there to 28.

Ann Akland, a member of the board of directors of NAMI Wake County, an advocacy group, said Rex’s plan addresses a critical need.

“It’s very difficult when patients have to wait a significant amount of time for an in-patient mental health bed, which is routinely happening in our state now,” Akland said. ‘The average (wait) is about three days.”

“The area that they’re creating at Rex is going to be such an improvement,” she continued. “They’re designing it to be a very nice place, with natural light and privacy. It will help people sort of begin their treatment almost, because of being in a place that is calmer.”

Construction on the facility will begin in April and is projected to be finished by the end of the year. The mental health area will take up about 6,000 square feet of the roughly 110,000 square feet being vacated by the cardio unit’s move into the new heart tower. Planning for the best use of the rest of the space is underway, but could include more space for dialysis as well as expanding the pharmacy and kitchen area, Wolf said.

This story was originally published February 14, 2017 at 9:34 AM with the headline "UNC Rex to build mental health zone with $2.5M gift."