NAPLES
North Collier Hospital closed its mental health unit on Friday, leaving the David Lawrence Center to take over. By closing the door on its inpatient mental health unit, NCH is getting out of the inpatient therapy business.
This means that the hospital will only accept Baker Acts if they come with a medical problem. While patients suffering from anxiety or depression will be treated only on an outpatient basis.
“So we’re eliminating our 12-bed inpatient program,” by doing so, NCH President and CEO Paul Hiltz said it would allow the hospital to focus on other areas.
“We have one of the fastest growing cardiac programs in the state of Florida,” Hiltz said. “And here we are giving a lot more attention to stroke. Those patients will need space for those intensive care patients.”
“On rare occasions, we weren’t at our best,” said NCH Executive Director of Nursing Gina Teegarden. “Once throughout the past year, our average census was four to five patients.”
But, at the David Lawrence Center, the mission is to provide behavioral health care to anyone who needs it.
“We already have, you know, hundreds of people every year that need to be transferred out of Collier County, because there’s not enough capacity within the county,” said Scott Burgess, president and CEO of the David Lawrence Center. “And that was before NCH with the reduction in beds.”
When David Lawrence is maxed out, some patients end up in Lee, Charlotte, and even Sarasota County.
“The pandemic has really exacerbated the psychological toll that people are going through…” Burgess said. “So we’re trying to ramp up that capacity as quickly as possible.”
Burgess hopes to have an additional 15 beds ready to go as soon as possible. DLC is also working with Collier County to build a new facility that will increase capacity from 45 to 130 beds. That should be done in the next two years.
