Providence Center Opens Inpatient Adolescent Psychiatric Unit

Providence St. Patrick Hospital has opened an inpatient adolescent psychiatric unit inside the Providence Center.

Chief Executive Joyce Dombrouski provides details of the new treatment facility.

“Yesterday we opened up a14 bed adolescent inpatient wing over in the Providence center,” said Dombrouski. “The Providence Center is a place where we've been providing behavioral health services for a long time, including adolescents. But we were licensed only for four beds, and often we just didn't have the right milieu or environment to serve the number of adolescents who needed us.”

Dombrouski explained how Providence was able to open the unit at this particular time.

“We've been benefited by philanthropy to allow us to create the space on the fourth floor of the Providence Center and it's 14 beds specifically for adolescents and adolescent programming the things that we know and understand that they're going to need if they are in crisis and need our services,” she said.

Dombrouski said the need and demand for such inpatient services is growing.

“I'd like to think it would solve the problem but I think that's a bit naïve,” she said. “Where we continue to always want to stay focused is on the preventative side,” she said. “So making sure that we work with outpatient counselors, school districts, whoever is or are intersecting with these kids to give them the coping skills to identify early on if anyone is struggling, if they need a counselor or if they need access to the outpatient programming, so that they really don't need to be admitted to the inpatient unit.”

There are 12 single rooms, two of which are ADA compliant and have medical beds, and there are two double rooms. The beds are designed to allow for interventions during a safety event, and security cameras are available in each room.