A $4 million grant will pay for the first mental health stabilization unit in West River. The Helmsley Charitable Trust announced funding for the facility currently under construction in downtown Rapid City.
There’s an urgent need for mental health treatment, especially in the state’s western counties. Currently, anyone in a mental health crisis goes to the Rapid City Regional Hospital or the Health and Human Services Center in Yankton.
Walter Panzirer, a trustee with the Helmsley Charitable Trust, said the new facility called Pivot Point will save time and resources.
“The person can be observed for up to five days here," Panzirer said. "They can start the diagnostic treatment, and really refer most of the patients back to community services, saving the patients time, saving family time, and also the county significant dollars.”
Panzirer said need for more mental health services is clear across the state.
“It’s not just a West River problem, but it’s very much magnified here because of the lack of services that are already preexisting," Panzirer said. "That’s why patients have to go such long ways often.”
Currently, those patients are transported by law enforcement, often removing a deputy from service for an entire day.
Department of Social Services secretary Laurie Gill said the new treatment facility can provide a template for patient stabilization in South Dakota.
“We realize that one of the gaps we have was crisis stabilization, and that is the ability to take somebody where they’re at and stabilize them if possible," she said. "That helps out the emergency rooms, that helps out the jails, so that those places aren’t taking people that are in behavioral health crisis, that we have a place that is close to their home and in the community to stabilize them.”
Similar facilities are under development in Aberdeen, Watertown and Yankton.