WakeMed breaks ground on new hospital for skyrocketing mental health needs
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- WakeMed broke ground on a 150-bed mental health hospital in Garner.
- Campus adds 45 acute-care beds and combines physical and behavioral treatment.
- Project draws $53M in public and community funding; opens mid-2028, accepts Medicaid.
WakeMed began construction on its new “whole health campus” in Garner on Thursday, expanding much-needed mental health treatment with a 150-bed hospital.
The hospital on Timber Drive East also adds 45 acute-care beds in the growing southern end of Wake County, combining treatment for heart attacks and broken bones in the same facility that treats depression and anxiety.
“When somebody is experience mental health care in real time, people don’t know where to go, where to get help,” Gov. Josh Stein said before the Thursday ground-breaking. “This hospital is going to be a place with open doors.”
State government and health care officials emphasized that mental health is not only in short supply, but too often remote and disconnected from other kinds of treatment.
The whole health campus aims to show that physical and mental health are intertwined and should be handled with the same attention and proximity. Too often, said WakeMed CEO Donald Gintzig, patients are forced to seek care out of state.
“We’ve seen the number of patients who can’t get the mental health care they need skyrocket,” Gintzig said. “Throw a pandemic on top of it. ... Everybody here knows somebody who has experienced mental health crisis.”
Garner is an ideal site, he said, because Interstate 40 and Jones Sausage Road offer easy access for patients, especially coming from the eastern NC counties.
He expected work on the 226-acre campus, near the intersection of White Oak Road, to be finished midway through 2028.
Its price tag includes $6 million in federal funding, $6 million from Wake County and another $6 million from the state, along with $35 million in community support.
Stein, meanwhile, called on the General Assembly to avoid cutting Medicaid, which the whole health campus will accept.
In July, state lawmakers approved $600 million for Medicaid, but NC health officials called that amount far short of needs through June 2026. DHHS has since said that North Carolina could run out of Medicaid reserves as early as April 2026 without further action.
“At the end of the day,” Stein said, “folks need to be able to pay for their health care.”