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New mental health treatment facility opens, and others are in early stages

everal Vermonters with complex mental health needs were transferred to a new locked residential facility in Essex last week, officials from the state Department of Mental Health told legislators. 
“It’s staffed and ready to go,” Commissioner Emily Hawes told the House Health Care Committee on Wednesday. “We’re really excited for folks to be engaged in that therapeutic environment.”
The newly constructed River Valley Therapeutic Residence marks a milestone in the state’s long journey to restructure its options for secure mental health care after historic flooding from Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 closed the Vermont State Hospital. The project adds nine additional residential beds. 
Yet another shift is likely to come from S.89, a bill in the final stages of approval in the Legislature that would allow establishing a separate nine-bed “forensic” residential facility within the building that houses the Vermont Psychiatric Care Hospital in Berlin. 
Also moving forward, though not for sure, is a new 12-bed inpatient psychiatric unit for youth ages 12 to 19 at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington, which a recently completed study found would be feasible. 
All three projects are part of the department’s goal “to create a comprehensive system that empowers Vermonters to receive mental health care on their terms, whenever and wherever they need it,” Hawes said in an emailed statement. 
Analysts pointed to a deficit in inpatient beds as one cause of a significant increase in the number of adults and youths waiting in the state’s general hospital emergency departments for mental health treatment. 
In the last six months, there has been a decrease in the average number of people waiting in emergency departments for care, as well as in the percentage of people there for more than 24 hours, according to the Vermont Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. The group represents all 14 of the state’s non-federal hospitals and collects weekly data from them. 
“This is good news for those in need of care and for our emergency departments and inpatient floors,” the organization said in a written statement. “However, on any given day, we still have many Vermonters waiting for care in a therapeutic inpatient setting which is why we remain committed to continued progress in this area.”

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