Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital leadership and local elected officials celebrate the opening of Quannacut Outpatient Services in Riverhead on Nov. 6. (Nicole Wagner photo)
A new mental health and substance abuse clinic in Riverhead is expanding access to behavioral health care on the East End.
Quannacut Outpatient Services held a ribbon cutting ceremony Thursday, Nov. 6 — three months after opening its doors on East Main Street. It was attended by more around 30 people, including Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital leadership, clinic workers and local elected officials.
So far, 25 people have registered for the clinic, SBELIH chief administrative officer Paul Connor told The Suffolk Times at the ceremony.
The clinic offers telehealth, co-occurring and primary care medical services. It also provides medication for addiction treatment, psychiatric evaluations and acts as a New York State Department of Motor Vehicle treatment site for driver’s license reinstatements.
Quannacut Outpatient provides highly specialized programs that address both immediate and long-term substance use and mental health needs, as well as the impact on families, significant others and support systems. It offers individual and group therapy for mental health and substance use.
The clinic is an arm of SBELIH, and recently received licensure from the New York State Office of Mental Health. The license has expanded the hospital’s ability to provide comprehensive behavioral health care to the region.
Assistant vice president of neurosciences and psychiatry Dr. Kristie Golden Campo, who started working as a case manager at 21, praised the clinic’s efforts. When she started, she said she had a case load of clients from Huntington to Port Jefferson. She drove one of her clients out to Greenport to get services at the time from SBELIH, formerly known as Eastern Long Island Hospital, for treatment of her co-occurring disorder.
“There is no better place for this integrated license to exist,” Ms. Golden Campo said. “This has been something that Eastern Long Island Hospital has done for a long time, and they’ve done it better than any other facility that I can remember.”
Mr. Connor added: “Here on Long Island, where our communities stretch across rural and suburban landscapes, the lack of access has real consequences.
The OMH license will allow the clinic to “close the gap” of services and connect people to the help they need closer to home, he said. It can be reached at 631-369-8966.
“I think a lot of us know people who could use these services, and I think that gives us great comfort knowing that they can be offered,” Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said of the clinic. “And, it gives us even more comfort knowing the people who are here are the ones who offer those services.”
Greenport Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi lauded the hospital’s achievements, calling health care one of Southold’s greatest exports.
“This is something that affects many of our friends and family,” he said. “I’ve certainly seen it in my family as well.”
The clinic opening comes at a time of need: One in five U.S. adults live with mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health as recently as 2022.
Nearly 49 million people in the U.S. over the age of 12 struggled with substance abuse in 2023, only 6% of whom received treatment, according to a 2023 survey by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That same survey found that nearly 21 million American adults suffered from both a mental health disorder and a substance use disorder, or co-occurring disorders.
For more information on treatments available at Quannacut Outpatient Services, visit elih.stonybrookmedicine.edu.