A little bit of concern shared by so many goes a long way.
This was evidenced by the latest development in a joint initiative to procure a viable resource for addressing mental health treatment inadequacies within Greenville and Washington County.
During Monday’s regular meeting of the Board of the Supervisors, Judge Bennie Richard apprised board members and others of the impending operations of Freedom Behavioral Greenville, a Distinct Part Unit (DPU) of Allegiance Specialty Hospital, which offers comprehensive psychiatric and diagnostic evaluation while providing treatment services by way of a “tranquil inpatient program” for adults ages 50 years and above.
He prefaced his update on the status of the mental commitment process and alcohol and drug process in Washington County by recalling how it began, which was with Carolyn Hayes who back in July, shared with the BOS the woes she has experienced as the mother of an individual who suffers from a mental illness.
“I will say to you all what I said to her — I don’t come before boards to address individual cases for different reasons and part of it is medical privacy. Case by case are dealt with on an individual basis, but what concerned me was whether or not it was something systemic going on across the board that would affect more than just a family member and diligence required me to meet with Mrs. Hayes directly,” said Richard. “Mrs. Hayes and I had a very productive one-on-one meeting. I understood her concerns and after understanding those concerns, I thought it was necessary for all of the stakeholders to get together and when I say stakeholders, I’m referring to individuals and entities that we use as resources to provide alcohol and drug and mental commitment support.”
During the July meeting Hayes attended, she asserted her insufficiency to fully care for her son in all of the ways needed and that his condition required substantially more care and professional attention than she is equipped to provide.
“Solutions has been closed for over a year. If you have any emergency situation like right now what would you do as a county official?“ she posed at the July meeting.
After that meeting, county officials hit the ground running.
Months later, a series of meetings with Hayes included have yielded what is anticipated to be a feasible resource in lieu of Solutions which was formerly housed on the second floor of Delta Health Systems-The Medical Center.
Richard highlighted a “wonderful meeting” that took place three weeks ago with several stakeholders including the county’s chancery clerk, Marilyn Hansell.
“The core group of stakeholders that we rely upon is Mrs. Hansell and her office, Life Help, Parkwood, Merit Health, CAPPS Crisis Center. What we discovered was the systemic problem that we had was the closure of Solutions, a second floor at DHS that we relied upon primarily, if not heavily, to assist us with mental commitments and alcohol and drugs,” Richard shared. “Solutions had a physical facility and when I say physical, I mean rooms, chairs and beds and conference rooms and they also had the professionals that were needed from the various disciplines — nurses, psychiatrist, psychologist, social workers and the entire gambit.”
Richard went on to say that in 2021, for a variety of different reasons, Solutions ceased to exist and operate, thus leaving stakeholders to try and meet the demands of citizens with their primary resource no longer available.
“I think the solution that we’ve come up with is Freedom Behavioral,” he asserted. “I wanted this board and this public to know there’s a new provider in town who I think is going to bridge our gap. The bottom line is our ability to help the public is only as good as the resources that we have.”
Freedom Behavioral currently services the geriatric population, adults who are ages 50 and older.
However, Richard has been made aware of Freedom Behavioral’s plans to expand their services to the 18 and older population later this month, which is where he and fellow stakeholders are aiming to be.
Richard has been intentional about extending the opportunity for Hayes to be heard and informed throughout the process as she made it known from the beginning how invested she was not just for her son, but others like him.
Program administrator Jessica Willis shed further light on Freedom Behavioral Greenville.
She reiterated it is a DPU on the third floor of Allegiance Specialty Hospital and is a specific unit that serves the psychiatric population.
“As Judge Richard said, we did close Solutions last August. There were numerous reasons why we had to shut that unit down and the biggest one was that the psychiatrist left,” Willis pointed out. “The goal is Oct. 14 for construction to be complete.”
She noted the goal of opening by Nov. 1 and said the biggest issue will likely be staffing.
“When we finish that unit, there will be 22 geriatric beds and there will be 10 adult beds,” Willis said in response to an inquiry by Supervisor Lee Gordon.
Richard once more thanked Hayes for “creating a moment to cause all of us to reassess and be better and do better.”
