Prince George’s County Welcomes New Behavioral Health Center at Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center
Dear Prince Georgians,
Today, we celebrated the grand opening of the Luminis Health Behavioral Health Center. The opening of this behavioral health center is part of our efforts to address a growing behavioral health need in the County. We have looked forward to this day for a while, and today is proof of what happens when we capitalize on a time of rising opportunity for our residents.
The new behavioral health center is located on the campus of Luminis Health Doctors Community Medical Center. The two-story, 31,200-square-foot facility will offer a broad continuum of behavioral health services starting this summer. The first floor of the center will offer ambulatory behavioral health services including an outpatient mental health center, behavioral health walk-in urgent care, a psychiatric day treatment program, an 8-bed addiction residential service, and a substance use disorder intensive outpatient treatment program. There will also be a 16-bed adult inpatient psychiatric unit on the second floor that is scheduled to open by early 2023.
Prince George’s County has battled some longstanding challenges in providing residents with access to behavioral healthcare. For so many years, our County has been categorized as a behavioral health desert, and residents have struggled to find convenient access to quality behavioral healthcare here at home. In 2019, the Prince George’s County Community Health Needs Assessment identified behavioral health as a leading health priority for our County’s residents. We have nearly one million residents here, but in the past, we have only had two acute care units for inpatient behavioral health. As a result, more than half the adult admissions from Prince George’s County were admitted to hospitals outside of our jurisdiction.
The problem has bled over into other areas like our criminal justice system. We know that people in a mental health crisis are more likely to encounter police than be provided access to the medical help they need. Over the past several years, nearly a third of the inmates brought to our detention center on any given day have been found to be on psychotropic drugs, and as many as 70% of the people who arrive at the jail are intoxicated when they get there. That is why at the start of my administration, I made expanding mental health services one of my Proud Priorities, and while we have made significant strides towards treating mental health more adequately, the COVID-19 pandemic only magnified these challenges that we face within our community.
We saw during the summer of 2020 how the nation was swept up in a broad, powerful movement to bring an end to police violence, and we were also faced with local incidents involving residents and our own police department. The moment was filled with new challenges, as well as conditions that have carried over for years. But within those circumstances rose an opportunity that we could no longer wait to seize. Our most vulnerable residents deserve to have their dignity preserved, and they deserve to be treated in an environment that is dedicated to healing and rehabilitation.
When these challenges presented a rising opportunity to reimagine how we use our resources, we knew we had to act. We sent enabling legislation to our County Council to shift $20 million from the building of a public safety training facility towards the construction of this behavioral health center. The County Council agreed that this was the right time to act and approved the measure to go on the ballot in the November 2020 elections. Prince Georgians, who have long expressed their belief that behavioral health care is a priority, also agreed that we could not pass up this opportunity and approved the legislation.
We were able to capture the opportunity in front of us and are taking huge steps to ensure that behavioral health will no longer be an underserved priority here. When a mental health crisis happens here, Prince Georgians will no longer have to search for a solution elsewhere. Our residents will receive top-notch treatment from physicians and facilities that are specifically dedicated to caring for a wide spectrum of mental health and substance use disorders. We will now have the high-quality care we need right here at home.
We want to thank Luminis Health, our County Health Department, our County Council, Prince Georgians, and everyone whose contributions and efforts made this happen. We will be a healthier community, both physically and mentally, because of you. Let us all continue working together and never stop acting on every opportunity to improve the health and well-being of Prince George’s County. To view the ribbon cutting ceremony, click here.
Yours in service,
Angela Alsobrooks
Prince George’s County Executive
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