Editorial
There is a quiet truth many families in Cullman County already know but rarely see acknowledged in public.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis here, there is nowhere to truly go.
Cullman County has one hospital. That hospital has an emergency room.
It does not have a dedicated in-patient mental health unit. It does not have a wing designed for stabilization, observation and treatment of those in psychological distress.
Instead, people in crisis are placed in an emergency room bay and told to wait. Sometimes for hours. Sometimes longer. Often until an outside provider can physically drive to the hospital after hours.
That is not mental health care. It is containment. This gap did not happen overnight.
In 2009, Cullman Regional purchased Woodland Medical Center, the only other hospital facility in the county at the time.
Woodland previously provided services that included mental health care. Following the acquisition, Woodland was closed and its operations consolidated.
No replacement in-patient mental health unit was created in its place.
More than a decade later, that absence remains.
Cullman County has grown. Our population has increased. Our economic development leaders regularly speak of momentum, opportunity and quality of life. Our hospital promotes itself as a regional leader in care.
Yet when it comes to mental health, the most basic level of in-patient treatment simply does not exist here.
If someone is suicidal, severely depressed, experiencing psychosis or in acute emotional crisis, they are routed through the emergency room. After medical clearance, they wait. They wait for an outside entity. They wait for transport. They wait for availability somewhere else.
This is not a staffing issue. It is a structural one.
A hospital that purchases the only facility offering mental health services and then fails to replace those services is making a choice.
A county with one hospital that does not offer in-patient psychiatric care is making a choice.
Sending patients elsewhere for treatment while branding yourself as comprehensive is a contradiction that cannot be smoothed over with marketing language.
Mental health is not an optional department. It is not an add-on. It is not something that can be outsourced indefinitely without consequences.
The reality is this. Cullman County needs a dedicated mental health wing. Not a room. Not a protocol. A wing. At minimum, 20 beds. Staffed. Purpose-built. Designed for safety, dignity and stabilization.
Anything less is not meeting the need. It is managing appearances.
People experiencing mental health crises are not inconveniences. They are not liabilities.
They are neighbors, parents, teenagers, veterans, caregivers and workers. Many of them walk past us every day carrying far more than anyone can see.
We talk often about taking care of our own. This is what that looks like in practice.
If a hospital must send its patients elsewhere for core care, then it is not providing full service. If a county must rely on after-hours drives from outside providers to address crises, then the system is broken by design.
This is not about blame for the past. It is about responsibility in the present.
Cullman County deserves better than a waiting room when minds are breaking and lives are on the line.
Mental health care should not depend on geography, timing or whether someone can endure hours of waiting while already in distress.
A community that prides itself on growth, faith and family must also be willing to build the spaces where healing can actually happen.
Silence has been easy for too long. The gap is no longer invisible. It is time to close it.