GREENVILLE, N.C. (WNCT) — North Carolina Governor Josh Stein toured the new ECU Health Behavioral Health Hospital, showing the promise of expanded care and the ongoing challenges facing mental health services across the state. He hopes to improve access to care, especially in rural communities where services are limited.
The newly opened ECU Health Behavioral Health Hospital includes 144 beds and is designed to provide both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services for adults and children. Leaders at the hospital say the goal is to close gaps in access and bring care closer to home for many North Carolinians who have struggled to find treatment.
Tyler Davis, CEO of ECU Health Behavioral Health Hospital said, “Across the country, one out of five Americans experiences a mental illness with reports of as many as 45% of those people not receiving the care, not having access to the care that they need. Here in rural North Carolina, we’re bringing that care much closer to home.”
Governor Stein said the state’s rapid population growth is a factor in an increasing demand for services. “We have real mental health challenges in the state. There are. We’re a fast growing state. We have well over 11 million people today. We didn’t we used to have just a few million less than that just a few years ago, so when you add that kind of population, you’re going to get people with all kinds of health conditions, And we need to make sure that we have the resources to serve the people in the way that they need service,” Stein said.
Dev Sangvai, Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services also toured the hospital, “There’s three things we want everyone to have. We want them to have someone to call, someone to respond and a safe place to go. And we’ve seen how this facility helps us materialize that vision,” he said.
The visit comes as Stein works to advance his proposed “critical needs budget,” which includes directing $319 million to fully fund Medicaid, the primary source of funding for behavioral health services in the state.
“We are the One state in the country that hadn’t passed a full budget, and most people know that we didn’t pass a budget last year. But what people don’t fully realize, we’ve not passed a full budget in North Carolina for two and a half years. That means that we’ve not kept up with the pace. Rate of inflation, 6% inflation.”
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