When Levi Hospital closed its doors on Aug. 1, 2025, not only did it bring the hospital’s 110-year history to a close, but it also left Garland County in a desert for inpatient mental health services.
National Park Medical Center hopes to change that with the opening of its new inpatient adult mental health unit on Monday. The hospital held a ribbon cutting and open house for the new facility Wednesday, giving people a behind-the-scenes look at what the facility will look like.
“What we’ve gone through for the past year and having Levi be in this community for over 100 years, I know that left a vacuum,” Scott Bailey, the CEO of NPMC, said during a ceremony Wednesday morning.
“And today I’m just so excited, I’m proud and excited for all of us and our healthcare environment,” he said. “Today is a meaningful day for National Park Medical Center. More importantly, it’s just as important for the community we are privileged to serve. The opening of this behavioral health unit represents more than just a new space. It represents the commitment, a commitment to meet a growing need with compassion, dignity, and clinical excellence.”
The new facility is located across the hall from the hospital’s geriatric behavioral health unit. The first phase consists of 12 beds, and the second phase, which is slated to open on July 1, will add four additional beds, a dining room, conference room and other areas for the patients, Dr. Peter Guresky, the hospital’s chief of staff and staff psychiatrist, said.
When Levi Hospital announced its intention to close on June 11, 2025, it did not take long for NPMC to look into trying to fill that void. Bailey and Guresky were meeting “within probably 48 hours” of the announcement.
“We had a conversation and looked at each other, and out of our mouths at the same time, we said, ‘Let’s do it.’ … I am looking so forward to doing my part to help this be a success,” Guresky said. “It’s good for our community. It’s good for our friends and neighbors, and it is an honor to be a part of serving a population that is so marginalized, traumatized and underserved in our community.”
State Rep. Les Warren, R-84, said the state Legislature has been discussing “the state of mental health and the crisis we’re facing” across the state for years.
“There’s a lot of talk, but not enough action,” Warren said during the ceremony. “When Levi shut down, it was concerning with all they had done for mental health needs for our community. National Park Medical Center (came) to the rescue.
“A community is only as good as the people who make it up. Collectively, we’re known as a great place to live and work, because we answer the needs of our people, just like this case. So, this morning, my hats off to National Park Medical Center for recognizing a critical need and seeing to it that this community and this county would not go without a vital service.”
Hot Springs Mayor Pat McCabe, who was Levi Hospital’s CEO until he left in 2023, said there are four pillars of healthcare: quality, affordability, accessibility and availability.
“About 50 weeks ago, the only general adult psychiatric program closed with no notice, no local availability, huge impact to the ERs, ambulance services and certainly to the patients in dire need,” he said, although the hospital did not close until Aug. 1, 2025.
“When services are not readily available, services are not sought, and the impact for those in need is real. Hospitals in Hot Springs operate in the same regulatory environment. When one may believe it’s time to close, another sees opportunity to serve. I congratulate National Park Medical Center on your willingness to step forward to serve this important population.”
Levi Foundation Executive Director Libby Harrington said the closure of the hospital was not due to the lack of need in the community.
“The closure was not because mental health needs went away,” she said. “I wish that were the case, but it’s not. It’s quite the opposite. Mental health needs continue to remain one of the biggest health needs here in our community, so you can imagine how excited we were to hear National Park was indeed stepping up to the plate and saying yes to continue services right here in Hot Springs. And it was a no-brainer for our leadership to help in any way we could.”
Levi Hospital donated many supplies and equipment to NPMC to help the hospital open the new unit.
“They were able to really donate a lot of our cameras, our beds, many things to this (facility) and probably save the hospital a quarter of a million dollars in costs just to get this thing open,” Bailey said.
“So (thank you) to the Foundation and onward and upward, because we’ll be spending up a lot of time with (Levi Foundation Executive Director) Libby (Harrington) and her team as we go forward.”
The new unit is fully staffed, Guresky said, even though it will only be partially opened.
“The nurse manager has hired enough staff to do all 16 beds,” he said. “By the way, a huge number — huge number — of people who worked at Levi, these are folks who’ve done other things, but like this kind of work so much that they waited a year to come work on another behavioral unit. Really impressive to me.
“We have enough staff that if we were to open today and had 16 patients today, we’d have to call some people in, but we have enough staff to manage. So we’re fully staffed and anxious to get phase two open.”
The new adult behavioral health unit at National Park Medical Center opens on June 1 with 12 of the 16 beds available. The rooms have several safety features, including bathroom doors that allow staff to be able to see the patient while providing privacy and a lack of ways for the patients to harm themselves. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)
National Park Medical Center staff, dignitaries and others joined the Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce Ambassadors, known as the Red Coats, for a ribbon cutting for the new adult behavioral health unit at the hospital. (The Sentinel-Record/Thomas Buckman)