DaytonDailyNews.com

DAYTON — Local health care and community leaders would prefer Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare stay open, but they said a local "crisis care center" for the mentally ill might be the next best option.

That's the pitch hospital and other leaders are making to Gov. Ted Strickland and state lawmakers this week as they scramble to mitigate the anticipated fallout of the Dayton region losing its only public psychiatric facility when Twin Valley closes June 30.

But local leaders face at least three major hurdles in their effort — time, money and a location for the center, which would provide emergency care and other services for the mentally ill.

"The one location we're not looking at is Twin Valley (at 2611 Wayne Avenue)," Bryan Bucklew, president of Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association, said Tuesday, May 20. "Our thought on that is, one, the city of Dayton has expressed interest in redeveloping that area. But more importantly, if the hospitals are going to be asked to provide the staff and facility for a crisis care center, it has to be centrally located and it has to be accessible to doctors and administrators from all our health care facilities."

Bucklew "wouldn't rule out" some space at Elizabeth Place, the medical office complex on South Edwin C. Moses Boulevard formerly known as St. Elizabeth's and later Franciscan Medical Center.

Of more immediate concern, though, are time and money, Bucklew said.

Local leaders asked Strickland and lawmakers for $20.7 million in state capital funds to establish the center — $6.3 million for a 60-bed facility run in cooperation with area hospitals, and $14.4 million to help hospitals cope with an increase in emergency treatment for mental health patients when Twin Valley closes.

Strickland appears cool toward increasing spending in this budget, a bricks and mortar blueprint financed by borrowing. Adding spending would increase the likelihood that the state would bump up against its debt limit in future capital budgets, said Keith Dailey, Strickland's spokesman.

Lawmakers hope to finalize the capital budget by next week.

Bucklew wrote to Strickland after Dayton leaders met Monday with William P. Harper, assistant director of the Ohio Department of Mental Health. Harper raised the idea of a crisis care center to replace Twin Valley.

"I know that crisis stabilization units have been very successful in other parts of the state," Harper said Tuesday, referring to centers in Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus.

Bucklew said a one-time investment by the state would preserve mental health services and allow the region to retain a training facility that benefits Wright State University, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the hospitals.

Twin Valley, formerly Dayton State Hospital, is closing under Strickland's plan to help plug a $733 million budget deficit. The state expects to save $13 million next year as a result.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7408 or agottschlich@DaytonDailyNews.c

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