From STLPR:
SSM Health will open the first behavioral health urgent care clinic in St. Louis next week on South Grand Boulevard, officials announced Monday.
The facility, based at the former emergency department at SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital, will operate like one of the dozens of no-appointment-needed urgent care centers around the region. But instead of conducting flu tests and treating skin infections, health workers will treat patients with depression, bipolar, addiction and other mental health issues.
“For the last 10 years, we’ve been living as a nation in mental health crisis,” said Dr. Erick Messias, SSM’s chief medical officer for behavioral health in the St. Louis region. “These crises have been overwhelming the emergency rooms to the point that some emergency rooms are creating separate areas, just for psychiatry and just for mental health.”
He noted that suicide rates in the United States have increased dramatically in the past two decades.
The facility will offer a place for those in a mental health crisis to drop in and be seen by a professional the same day. Workers at the center — from SSM, the nonprofit Places for People and the newly formed St. Louis Behavioral Health Bureau — will be able to assess, treat and medicate patients.
The center will treat people with depression, grief, psychosis and addiction, Messias said.
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