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DANVILLE – The need for mental health services has grown tremendously over the years, but the number of available caregivers has not kept up. Geisinger’s new president and CEO Tuesday said about 56% of the people in the US say they could benefit from some form of mental health care.
Help is on the way…Sister Barbara Sabol offered the invocation prayer at groundbreaking for the new mental health treatment facility in the Danville area, “Help us to identify mental illness, as the disease it is, that we might have courage and wisdom in the face of ignorance and stigma.”
Work is already well underway on the building, but the symbolic groundbreaking was held with officials and community members from across the region. Dr. Imad Melhem, is the head of psychiatry at Geisinger and said they have to build the hospital, “The amount of demand for mental health treatment and the increased rate of mental illness and substance use problems, makes it not even a choice honestly.”
The facility is expect to open during the summer time in 2025, it will be for inpatient and outpatient treatment, will treat all ages and is going to be run by Acadia Health care for Geisinger.
The land is on the Danville/Mahoning Township border and originally, Danville said they didn’t want it on their part of the St. Cyril’s campus. Mahoning Township said yes, and construction is underway.
Here is a full news release from Geisinger about the event:
DANVILLE, Pa. – Geisinger and Acadia Healthcare Company held a ceremony today to celebrate the start of construction on their previously announced state-of-the-art, 96-bed behavioral health hospital in Danville. The event occurred on the site of the new center at 206 Maria Hall Drive in Danville.
Named Geisinger Behavioral Health Center Danville, the hospital is slated to open in the spring of 2025 and will offer inpatient, intensive outpatient and ECT treatment programs, supporting Geisinger’s mission to serve the more than 1.2 million people across 45 counties in Pennsylvania in its service area. The hospital will address the growing need for accessible, high-quality behavioral health services in central Pennsylvania.
The hospital will provide care for adult, pediatric and adolescent patients who have acute symptoms of behavioral health disorders such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, psychosis, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This array of acute behavioral health services provides a level of care unparalleled in central Pennsylvania, especially for children and adolescents.
The new hospital will also serve as a teaching hospital, training students and residents from Geisinger’s College of Health Sciences, many of whom will go on to practice in central Pennsylvania and carry forth Geisinger’s mission to improve the health and well-being of the region.
“The need for behavioral health resources is a national issue that we also face here in central Pennsylvania,” said Terry Gilliland, M.D., Geisinger’s president and chief executive officer. “This facility will be an important part of the solution to help us deliver on Geisinger’s mission to make better health easier for the communities we serve by expanding and enhancing access to behavioral health services.”
“We’re thrilled to have an opportunity to introduce this new facility to Danville and the surrounding communities,” said Chris Hunter, chief executive officer of Acadia Healthcare. “We are so proud to work together with Geisinger to expand upon their legacy of compassionate care in this area. This hospital, like all across the Geisinger network, will become a strong member of the community, collaborating with all organizations, hospitals and first responders.”
The new hospital is the second hospital in Pennsylvania built by the joint venture between Geisinger and Acadia. Geisinger and Acadia opened a similar hospital in Moosic in August 2023. These two new hospitals will allow Geisinger to consolidate inpatient behavioral health programs from Geisinger Medical Center, Geisinger Bloomsburg Hospital and Geisinger Community Medical Center, providing additional capacity to those hospitals.
About Geisinger
Geisinger is among the nation’s leading providers of value-based care, serving 1.2 million people in urban and rural communities across Pennsylvania. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Abigail Geisinger, the non-profit system generates $10 billion in annual revenues across 134 care sites – including 10 hospital campuses, and Geisinger Health Plan, with 600,000 members in commercial and government plans. The Geisinger College of Health Sciences educates more than 5,000 medical professionals annually and conducts more than 1,400 clinical research studies. With 26,000 employees, including 1,600 employed physicians, Geisinger is among Pennsylvania’s largest employers with an estimated economic impact of $14 billion to the state’s economy. On March 31, 2024, Geisinger became the first member of Risant Health, a new nonprofit charitable organization created to expand and accelerate value-based care across the country. Learn more at geisinger.org or follow on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and X.
About Acadia Healthcare
Acadia is a leading provider of behavioral healthcare services across the United States. As of March 31, 2024, Acadia operated a network of 253 behavioral healthcare facilities with approximately 11,200 beds in 38 states and Puerto Rico. With approximately 23,500 employees serving more than 75,000 patients daily, Acadia is the largest stand-alone behavioral healthcare company in the U.S. Acadia provides behavioral healthcare services to its patients in a variety of settings, including inpatient psychiatric hospitals, specialty treatment facilities, residential treatment centers and outpatient clinics.
