The mental health equivalent of the urgent care medical clinic has arrived in south central Pennsylvania and, in the eyes of many who work in the field, not a minute too soon.
It’s the region’s first 24/7, mental health walk-in clinic – and it will open next Wednesday in newly-renovated Dauphin County-owned building at 1100 S. Cameron St. in Harrisburg.
Serving people from age 14 and up, the Connections Emergency Behavioral Health Crisis Walk-in Center – a joint venture of the Dauphin and Cumberland / Perry county mental health agencies – will serve anyone showing up with mental health needs, regardless of their insurance coverage or ability to pay.
A separate back door entrance is dedicated to people bring brought in by police officers who have determined immediate mental health treatment is the better response than, say, a municipal lock-up or staying on the streets.
The new facility will be operated by Connections Health Solutions, an Arizona-based firm that operates similar centers in Phoenix and Tuscon, Ariz., Kirkland, Wash., and Chantilly, Va.
The company – which developed its clinic in Tuscon as part of that community’s response to the 2011 mass shooting outside a supermarket there that killed six people and left then-U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords seriously wounded – prides itself on a “no wrong doors” approach that allows it to accept nearly any patient, round-the-clock.
The company says it stabilizes most of its clients within its 24-hour treatment limit, and then provides or connects them to longer-term courses of treatment that results in very few ever ending up in jail or needing hospitalization.
The need for mental health care has surged in recent years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the Harrisburg and all over Pennsylvania, people tell of having to wait several months for a first appointment and to receive treatment and medication for a condition such as depression.
The Connections walk-in center could slash that wait down to hours.
But even if a person in crisis is simply taken to the nearest hospital emergency room, it can take hours – sometimes even days – for the appropriate staff to come in to evaluate them, and that whole time by regulation there is supposed to be a dedicated staff person there to keep them under observation.
That can lead to longer waits for people with pressing medical needs, who are now forced to wait outside the door.
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