On Aug. 25, NCDHHS’ Deputy Secretary of Health, Debra Farrington, attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of ECU Health’s new Behavioral Health Hospital in Greenville. The ECU Health Behavioral Health Hospital is scheduled to welcome patients in September with 144 beds to serve both adults and children.
The ribbon-cutting marks a historic milestone in expanding access to high-quality, compassionate behavioral health services in eastern North Carolina and beyond. The opening of this hospital will have a statewide impact by increasing North Carolina’s behavioral health care infrastructure, a key priority of NCDHHS.
“The new ECU Health Behavioral Health Hospital will not only expand access to crisis care but will also offer more opportunities for providers to live and work in rural North Carolina,” said Deputy Secretary of Health Debra Farrington. “The opening of this new behavioral health hospital shows us what real change looks like when our workforce, communities and state leaders come together to transform our mental health care system to provide care when and where it is needed most.”
The hospital was built through a partnership with ECU Health and Acadia Healthcare. It will offer inpatient and outpatient programs for adults, seniors, children and adolescents facing acute mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, PTSD, bipolar disorder and co-occurring substance use disorders. This care is critical as more than one in four children are experiencing a mental health need and one in five adults are experiencing a mental illness.
The opening of the behavioral health hospital will also foster an educational partnership with Eastern Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, College of Nursing, and College of Allied Health Sciences. The hospital will serve as a training site for students and residents in psychiatry, nursing, social work, and related disciplines, all to help address the shortage of behavioral health professionals in the region.